I protest.

Fucked priorities.

Billions for war: "Bush to ask billions more for Iraq," not one red cent for education: "Budgets cut student experience."

No soldier left alive, every child left behind.

Beware the "amnesty."

Not only the Electronic Frontier Foundation but a Republican Senator, of all people, is cautioning against taking advantage of the RIAA's so-called "amnesty:" Senator Cautions Those Tempted By RIAA Amnesty Offer.

While Senator Coleman claims that the RIAA has "legitimate concerns" with respect to the "devastating economic impact of illegal file-sharing and copyright infringement" (which as far as I'm concerned is an incredibly gross overstatement at best), he is worried that they may be "abusing the broad-based subpoena authority it recently won in court to determine the extent of illegal file sharing in the U.S. and that its tactics may be creating 'anxiety and concern' among many Americans who are 'innocent or unknowingly guilty of violating copyright infringement laws.'"

Personally, I support the EFF's suggestion:

"Rather than demanding that 60 million people sharing music files turn themselves in with a so-called 'amnesty' program, the recording industry should take this opportunity to make file-sharing legal in exchange for a reasonable fee," said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Stepping into the spotlight to admit your guilt is probably not a sensible course for most people sharing music files online, especially since the RIAA doesn't control many potential sources of lawsuits."

This "amnesty" actually puts me in mind of the tactic Mao used in the early 1960's to stifle dissent, promising amnesty to critics when in actuality using the published criticisms to identify and round up those critical of his policies. It worked once in China, I guess the RIAA thinks that it will work again in the United States.

Eric Parke agrees with me.

He's suing the RIAA: RIAA sued for amnesty offer:

California resident Eric Parke, on behalf of the general public of the state, filed a suit Tuesday against the trade association because of its amnesty, or "Clean Slate," program, a provisional shield it introduced Monday that allows people to avoid legal action by stepping forward and forfeiting any illegally traded songs. The suit, filed in the Marin Superior Court of California, charges that the RIAA's program is a deceptive and fraudulent business practice.

It is "designed to induce members of the general public...to incriminate themselves and provide the RIAA and others with actionable admissions of wrongdoing under penalty of perjury while (receiving)...no legally binding release of claims...in return," according to the complaint.

"This lawsuit seeks a remedy to stop the RIAA from engaging in unlawful, misleading and fraudulent business practices," the suit reads.

Of course, the RIAA is dismissive of Parke and his lawsuit, claiming that "[n]o good deed goes unpunished," and that "It's also unfortunate that a lawyer would try to prevent others from getting the assurances they want that they will not be sued." It apparently escapes them that their "amnesty" offer give absolutely no assurances whatsoever that those taking advantage of it will not be sued or otherwise punished.

Business as usual at the RIAA.

RIAA: About the corporation, not the artist.

Ampersand has a great post on his weblog, "How record labels exploit bands." He refers to an article by Steve Albini that begins by comparing signing with a label to swimming a sixty-yard-long pool of shit.

I suspect that Albini understates the case.

The upshot: The corporate label gets virtually all of the money for the artist's work, the artist gets virtually none. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the corporation owns the copyright to all the artist's work done while under contract.

Ampersand suggests a few changes to laws, which would basically have the effect of regulating the industry. Go read his post for his suggestions; while I generally agree with him, I just don't think he goes far enough. These days, no artist should ever sign with a label. Ever. With current technology and this new communication medium you and I are using right now, self-publishing is trivially easy. Sure, you won't make $10,000,000, but then artists don't make that money, it all goes to the corporation. You certainly will make more than $5,000 on a $3,000,000 gross that Amp mentions. By self-publishing, every dime over production costs goes in your pocket.

As for me, yeah, I've downloaded songs. I don't any more, really, simply because the music I like isn't popular. Besides, and more importantly, I really do want the artists to whom I listen to benefit from my purchases. To that end, I never buy from a major label. Instead, when I buy a CD, I buy it from places like this or this. At most I will buy from an independent label like this one.

And by the way, I'm also never again going to buy another song to which I haven't already listened. Self-publishing and the independent labels neatly solve that problem. Of course, the major labels refuse to even recognize it as a problem.

The RIAA (and the MPAA as well, for that matter) is a dinosaur. A very large, very slow dinosaur which is dead, but whose walnut-sized brain hasn't quite gotten the message just yet. The principals of the RIAA, though, are so accustomed to their tradition of screwing both the artist and the audience that they have begun to think of doing so as their right. Robert A. Heinlein, in his story "Life Line," had something to say about this viewpoint:

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit.

This is probably the point at which I should mention that the RIAA is now trying to link peer-to-peer file sharing to child pornography. Their intent, of course, is to destroy the ability of users of the Internet to share files with each other, in the hope that this will curb music downloads. Of course, the obvious fact (pointed out by the graphic on that New York Times article) is that peer-to-peer file sharing has a miniscule, and dropping, portion of such traffic. Maybe the RIAA should go after web sites in general, eh? After all, that's where most of the kiddie porn is, right?

Feh.

As a society, we at last have the ability for music-makers (not to mention writers and moviemakers) to directly reach their audiences without the intervention of middlemen like those in the RIAA. Middlemen who make their living by stealing from both the artist and the audience. It is time and past time that we tell the RIAA just where to stuff their lies and their lawsuits.

Science fiction.

At least, it was science fiction when Arthur C. Clarke wrote about it a bit over twenty years ago. Today, though, a group of folks in Santa Fe were discussing it for real: The cheap way to the stars - by escalator. Of course, the Guardian got it wrong, it's not an escalator, it's an elevator. And apparently, given the recent advances in materials science, NASA is taking seriously enough to put "several million dollars" into such a project.

Cooool.

A stench upon the land.

Not content with destroying the Texas environment, George W. Bush is now aiming at California, according to this article in today's LA Times: "U.S., State Clash Over Environment."

California has perhaps the strongest environmental legislation in the country. In particular, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has implemented legislation that has improved the air quality in Los Angeles, once infamous for Stage 3 smog alerts and a constant brown haze, to the point that any smog alert at all in the LA Basin itself is news. In the 1970's, Los Angeles had perhaps the worst air quality in the country. Today, after almost thirty years of regulation and improvement, the air in the LA Basin is actually clean for the most part. Here near the beach, where we once had at least Stage One alerts, we have had no alerts at all in so long that I can't remember the last one.

This chart has a very good indication of the job the AQMD has done and is continuing to do.

Naturally, Bush and the rich Republican bastards in his administration want to roll all this progress back to pre-1970's levels. To that end, they are challenging California's laws protecting the environment.

California's environmental protection laws, among the toughest in the nation, are being challenged frequently as the Bush administration acts to blunt regulations viewed as inconsistent with national policy.

The administration has weighed in on matters ranging from offshore oil drilling to air pollution to toxic waste cleanups, outraging state officials and environmentalists, who warn that the actions threaten to undermine the role California has played as a laboratory for innovative environmental solutions intended to improve the quality of people's lives.

The Bush administration "has joined with the auto industry in a successful lawsuit to weaken California's mandate to build nonpolluting electric cars." That's not enough, though:

Late last month [this would have been late August], the Justice Department backed oil companies and engine manufacturers in a lawsuit pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn regulations enacted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Bush has also had his pet EPA annouce that the Clean Air Act "precludes state regulation of carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming."

Winston Hickox, state environmental protection secretary, find this assault "astonishing." He has obviously not been paying attention. I find it par for the course, where this administration is concerned. These people (using the term as loosely as possible) favor strong government to cripple environmental protection laws and favor weak government to cripple or destroy Social Security, Medicare and other social programs. They are invariably on the side of big business and against anything that might so much as slightly inconvenience such businesses. These are the "tax cut for the rich" folks.

Once upon a time, the EPA was an advocate of a people disgusted with the pollution with which they had to live constantly. Those of you reading this may remember the television commercial that was often run in the '70s, of the American Indian (Native American, these days) looking at the polluted rivers and land, ending with a tear running down his face. Now, though, the EPA is in the pocket of an administration that is willing to do anything at all to promote its elitist, oligarchical, aristocratic agenda. It is a government of, by and for the wealthy.

And meanwhile, those poor, ignorant fools in Alabama believed the lies fed them by those same elitist demogogues and voted themselves another few decades of grinding poverty.

Damn George W. Bush and damn you idiots who voted for him!

"Trust me, I'm from the government."

As usual: Ashcroft denounces Patriot Act "hysteria". Ashcroft says things like this:

In a speech Monday to an American Restaurant Association conference, Ashcroft said people are being wrongly led to believe that libraries have been "surrounded by the FBI," with agents "dressed in raincoats, dark suits and sunglasses. They stop everyone and interrogate everyone like Joe Friday.

"Now, you may have thought with all this hysteria and hyperbole, something had to be wrong," Ashcroft said. "Do we at the Justice Department really care what you are reading? No."

Er, actually the answer to that question is "yes." They do indeed care, if you're reading "dangerous" literature, such as, say, the Qu'ran or, perhaps, information about explosives. The problem, of course, is that the Justice Department has the power to perform intrusive investigations, not that it will use it. Having the power, someone will, sooner or later, use that power, whether or not doing so might be "justified" as a matter of "terrorism" or "national security." As long as "national security" is what John Ashcroft says it is, we are all in danger.

Ashcroft belittles and insults those who seek to protect the rights we all take for granted. He, himself, is probably the worst danger we face. He is a man who has used and is using the deaths of thousands of innocents to promote his own agenda, his own personal view of how things "should be." He is a vile, despicable man who has no business holding the position he does.

So much for that.

Kieran Healy deconstructs the latest "fact" going around in "Word Salad." The short version: Most commonly-used English words are short and any word of three or fewer letters cannot be scrambled, leaving quite a bit of context from which we can discern meaning. Kieran then provides this example of a paragraph without those two characteristics:

Recrsheears souhld csrncotut secntnees unisg olny wodrs edxcieneg terhe lttrees. Tihs wlil psoe seevral polrbems beaucse wwreell-ittn Esglinh sluohd nlurtaaly cointan mnay sorht wrdos iunidnlcg pvrn-eborses, gtienvie csaes, cncoeinvets and (howpos) penrpsoitois, aongmst many ohtres. Lnoegr wrods soluhd povre useufl when tteinsg tihs ieda. Fatiensnredg wdors dviorecd from hplfeul cnotext mhgit aslo mkae fnie cidenadats for (siht) iiulsocnn. Eelhapnt. Preorpritay. Mainargl. Avtrinmdatiise. Boyend. Caainnbl. Wree tsohe tcekriir tahn tpyical sentecens? Ppostecirve linigusts wlil fnid csnuotntrcig w-llromefed, ativce senetcens fere form tohse mnay hfepull sohrt wrods raehtr dcffiuilt. Tihs txet smees edecnive eonguh of (carp) taht ponit. Neevretslhes, linigstus slohud sitrve twoards tihs goal. Cvioncning sitedus msut searapte ecah slmal wdor's cepvidnino-troxtg rloe from the (admn) sipecfic ieda taht praticular otparhghiroc tosntrianipsos gaurantee taht sesne wlil reiman eevn toughh itrnael snbairmclg occrus. Fanlily dleabielrty minlaaitpnug sacmrbled lteter oedrr sohlud make tihngs eevn mroe duffiilct. Raeeedrs wlil fnid wdros wtih vbres or (fcuk) cooatsnnns aaenrrgd ceiuoesctlnvy mkae uiansmnrbclg mroe dcffliiut.

Okay, I surrender.

They eat their own.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of assholes: Texas GOP Has Intraparty Dispute Over Redistricting. As if bullying the Democrats into submission wasn't enough, now they're going after each other.

With luck, they'll stay deadlocked until the end of the latest special session. DeLay must be livid over this one. Heh.

Via Sisyphus Shrugged.

Ted Kennedy: Bush lied.

From CNN this morning: Kennedy's 'Texas' remark stirs GOP reaction. What Kennedy said:

There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.

The unsurprising reply from the Republicans:

"The senator's comments reflect the tired old soft-on-defense attitude of the Democratic Party," the Republican official told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Emphasis mine. Uh huh. Looks to me more like the usual tired old soft-on-lying attitude of the Republican Party. A Kennedy aide gives aid and comfort to the Republicans by claiming that "the senator in the AP interview was trying to point out there are 'real questions' about the administration's intent in the war." Bullshit. Ted Kennedy was calling Bush and his cabal liars, plain and simple. It's true, and the message must not be soft-pedalled.

Bush lied, thousands died. And are still dying in the modern Viet Nam that is Iraq.

Remember Jose Padilla?

He is still, after well over a year, being held in solitary confinement in a Navy brig in North Carolina. While you and I may know about his case, he doesn't. The Village Voice's Nat Hentoff has another article about the situation: "Bush Accused by Lords of the Bar."

As the article says, the majority of the media is ignoring this case completely. This is despite the fact that if it can happen to Padilla, a United States citizen against whom no charges have been filed, it can happen to any of us. As his court-appointed lawyer, Donna Newman, says:

As [his court-appointed lawyer] Donna Newman says, "While the world knows about his case, he does not. They put somebody in a legal black hole.

Padilla has been stripped of his rights — until now guaranteed by the Constitution — by the sole order and authority of George W. Bush, who has designated him an "enemy combatant."

This violates the principle, encoded in the United States Constitution, of habeas corpus. (From that link: "In Brown v. Vasquez, 952 F.2d 1164, 1166 (9th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 112 S.Ct. 1778 (1992), the court observed that the Supreme Court has 'recognized the fact that "[t]he writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 290-91 (1969). ' Therefore, the writ must be 'administered with the initiative and flexibility essential to insure that miscarriages of justice within its reach are surfaced and corrected.' Harris, 394 U.S. at 291.")

Again from the Village Voice article:

… Quoted was Harold Tyler, a former federal judge, and deputy attorney general under President Gerald Ford, who brought him in to cleanse the Justice Department after Watergate:

"They should charge this man if they've got something against him. And they should give him the right to counsel. These are all constitutional rights. . . . I have been a longtime Republican, but I'm a disenchanted Republican in this case."

The amicus brief he and the other members of the establishment bar signed declares: "Throughout history totalitarian regimes have attempted to justify their acts by designating individuals as 'enemies of the state' who were unworthy of any legal rights or protections. These tactics are no less despicable, and perhaps even more so, when they occur in a country that purports to be governed by the rule of law." And George W. Bush regularly intones his allegiance to "the rule of law."

"George W. Bush regularly intones his allegiance to 'the rule of law.'" George W. Bush is a hypocrite and a liar. He is no more interested in "the rule of law" than is Usama bin Laden, except where that "rule of law" favors Bush and his cronies. Making it not a "rule of law" so much as a tyranny.

You who support Bush and believe him to be the "best President in history" had better carefully consider the case of Jose Padilla with respect to the rights given each and every United States citizen by the Constitution. Then consider whether, in fact, George W. Bush lied when he said:

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Bush lies. Americans die.

...same as the old boss...

Riverbend at her weblog "Baghdad Burning" writes of terrorism in Iraq:

I first witnessed a raid back in May. The heat was just starting to become unbearable and we were spending the whole night without electricity. I remember lying in my bed, falling in and out of a light sleep. We still weren't sleeping on the roof because the whole night you could hear gunshots and machinegun fire not very far away- the looters still hadn't organized themselves into gangs and mafias. At around 3 am, I distinctly heard the sound of helicopters hovering not far above the area. I ran out of the room and into the kitchen and found E. pressing his face to the kitchen window, trying to get a glimpse of the black sky.
…
Out on the roof, the sky was black streaked with light. Helicopters were hovering above, circling the area. E. was leaning over the railing, trying to see into the street below. I approached tentatively and he turned back to me, "It's a raid… on Abu A.'s house!" He pointed three houses down the road.
…
The house was ransacked… searched thoroughly for no one knows what- vases were broken, tables overturned, clothes emptied from closets…

By 6 am the last cars had pulled out. The area was once more calm and quiet. I didn't sleep that night, that day or the night after. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Abu A. and his grandson L. and Reem… I saw Umm A., crying with terror, begging for an explanation.

Abu A. hasn't come back yet. The Red Cross facilitates communication between him and his family… L. no longer walks down our street on Fridays, covered in chocolate, and I'm wondering how old he will be before he ever sees his grandfather again…

And before some imbecile says something about children of the victims of 9/11 not ever seeing their parents again, let me remind you that there was no connection between the events of 9/11 and Iraq. George W. Bush admitted as much a few days ago.

Yes, there are now terrorists in Iraq (although there were almost certainly few or none before our ill-conceived invasion). Some there willingly and are part of Hamas, perhaps, while others are part of Al Qaeda. But the majority, unfortunately, wear American uniforms and are there unwillingly at best.

Liar, liar.

Looks like Ashcroft wasn't quite telling the truth when he claimed that the FBI has not used [the] Patriot Act to get library [and] business records." From TalkLeft, "Libraries Report Being Asked for Records."

Go read Jeralyn's entry; apparently there is a lot of blog chatter about this, to which she links. (I picked up the link via Sisyphus Shrugged.)

All I want to say is that I told you so. Ashcroft truly believes that the end he seeks justifies any means used to reach it, whether that is lying or violating people's Constitutional or human rights. Or, I imagine, anything else. We all end up in even more danger than we were, for not only are we not any more safe from "terrorist threats," but we are now in danger from our own government.

Albatross!

America puts Iraq up for sale.

n an unexpected move unveiled at the meeting in Dubai of the Group of Seven rich nations, the Iraqi Governing Council announced sweeping reforms to allow total foreign ownership without the need for prior approval.

The initiative bore all the hallmarks of Washington's ascendant neoconservative lobby, complete with tax cuts and trade tariff rollbacks. It will apply to everything from industry to health and water, although not oil.

Emphasis mine. Gee, I wonder why they're not putting the oil business up for sale?

This is pretty transparently a bid for investment funds, since Iraq itself, far from being a goldmine, is instead a black hole for dollars. But who will be stupid enough to invest in a place where violence is spiralling out of control, where the occupying power is obviously out of its depth and where the so-called Iraqi "Governing Council" is at best an American puppet consisting largely of corrupt politicians there only to steal what they can before the bottom falls out of the situation?

Salesman: (shouting) Albatross!
Man: Two good humors please.
S: I haven't got any good humors, I've just got this bloody albatross....(shouts) Albatross!
M: What flavor is it?
S: It's a bird mate, it's a bloody bird, it's not any bloody flavor....(shouts) Albatross!
M: It's got to be some flavor, I mean everything's got a flavor.
S: All right, it's bloody albatross flavor, it's bloody sea bloody bird bloody flavor....(shouts) Albatross!
M: Do you get wafers with it?
S: Course you don't get bloody wafers with it, it's a bloody albatross isn't it...(shouts) Albatross!
M: I'll have two please.
S: I've only got one you cocksucker....(shouts) Albatross! Albatross!

UPDATE: For the record, by the way, I think that this is a vile decision. They're selling off Iraq to the highest bidder. Who will profit? Well, certainly not the Iraqis.

Define "hypocrite."

Jeanne D'Arc quotes a Beliefnet interview with Al Franken in "Story of the day" today. Excerpting it wouldn't do it justice, just go read it.

This story suggests rather strongly that George W. "devout Christian" Bush, um, lies about how often (or perhaps even whether) he reads the Christian Bible.

Why would he lie about something like that? Why?

And if he did lie about that, what else is he lying about?

Krugman at UC Berkeley.

Following a link from C.J. Silverio through a weblog entry by Roger Karraker I found webcast of Krugman's recent talk at UC Berkeley. He really doesn't say much that one wouldn't learn by reading CalPundit's interview with him, but it is certainly interesting to see him "live," as it were, rather than only in print. He had some scathing things to say about the lies of the Bush administration, and some potentially very frightening things to say about our economic future. When asked if the current crop of Democratic candidates offered any hope, the best Krugman gave was that they are at least better than the Bushies. He did affirm that the United States is capable of pulling out of the hole we're collectively plummetting into, but the fact is that a divided government (which will be the case if a Democrat wins in 2004) will not make much progress, if any. The solution is simple, if drastic: Roll back the tax cuts, then increase taxes. He asserted that if our tax rate were, say, half of Canada's, we would be fine and would even have a small excess.

Of course, the Republican House would not stand for that. Unfortunately, we will have to do that, or default on our debt, or gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Tom DeLay and the rest of the idiots in the Republican Party would be thrilled at the last one, but the rest of us may not be so enthusiastic. Particularly if one is depending upon one or more of those programs. I guess anyone who is sick, old and not incredibly wealthy can just die, eh?

Krugman didn't say that directly, of course. It's just what I conclude from what he did say and from what I know of the situation.

Go watch the webcast, though. You'll need RealPlayer and a broadband connection, but you'll be glad you took the time.