[JackSpratts]

Hip-Hop's Down Beat
Ta-Nehisi Coates

When the political activist Al Sharpton pivoted from his war against bigmouth radio man Don Imus to a war on bad-mouth gangsta rap, the instinct among older music fans was to roll their eyes and yawn. Ten years ago, another activist, C. Delores Tucker, launched a very similar campaign to clean up rap music. She focused on Time Warner (parent of TIME), whose subsidiary Interscope was home to hard-core rappers Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. In 1995 Tucker succeeded in forcing Time Warner to dump Interscope.

Her victory was Pyrrhic. Interscope flourished, launching artists like 50 Cent and Eminem and distributing the posthumous recordings of Shakur. And the genre exploded across the planet, with rappers emerging everywhere from Capetown to the banlieues of Paris. In the U.S. alone, sales reached $1.8 billion.

The lesson was Capitalism 101: rap music's market strength gave its artists permission to say what they pleased. And the rappers themselves exhibited an entrepreneurial bent unlike that of musicians before them. They understood the need to market and the benefits of line extensions. Theirs was capitalism with a beat.

Today that same market is telling rappers to please shut up. While music-industry sales have plummeted, no genre has fallen harder than rap. According to the music trade publication Billboard, rap sales have dropped 44% since 2000 and declined from 13% of all music sales to 10%. Artists who were once the tent poles at rap labels are posting disappointing numbers. Jay-Z's return album, Kingdom Come, for instance, sold a gaudy 680,000 units in its first week, according to Billboard. But by the second week, its sales had declined some 80%. This year rap sales are down 33% so far.

Longtime rap fans are doing the math and coming to the same conclusions as the music's voluminous critics. In February, the filmmaker Byron Hurt released Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary notable not just for its hard critique but for the fact that most of the people doing the criticizing were not dowdy church ladies but members of the hip-hop generation who deplore rap's recent fixation on the sensational.

Both rappers and music execs are clamoring for solutions. Russell Simmons recently made a tepid call for rappers to self-censor the words nigger and bitch from their albums. But most insiders believe that a debate about profanity and misogyny obscures a much deeper problem: an artistic vacuum at major labels. "The music community has to get more creative," says Steve Rifkin, CEO of SRC Records. "We have to start betting on the new and the up-and-coming for us to grow as an industry. Right now, I don't think anyone is taking chances. It's a big-business culture."

It's the ultimate irony. Since the 1980s, when Run-DMC attracted sponsorship from Adidas, the rap community has aspired to be big business. By the '90s, those aspirations had become a reality. In a 1999 cover story, TIME reported that with 81 million CDs sold, rap was officially America's top-selling music genre. The boom produced enterprises like Roc-A-Fella, which straddled fashion, music and film and in 2001 was worth $300 million. It produced moguls like No Limit's Master P and Bad Boy's Puff Daddy, each of whom in 2001 made an appearance on FORTUNE's list of the richest 40 under 40. Along the way, the music influenced everything from advertising to fashion to sports.

The growth spurt was fueled by sensationalism. Tupac Shakur shot at police, was convicted of sexual abuse and ultimately was murdered in Las Vegas. But Shakur both alive and dead has also sold more than 20 million records. Death Row Records, which released much of Shakur's material, was run by ex-con Suge Knight and dogged by rumors of money laundering. But between 1992 and 1998, the label churned out 11 multiplatinum albums. Gangsta rappers reveled in their outlaw mystique, crafting ultra-violent tales of drive-bys and stick-ups designed to shock and enthrall their primary audience--white suburban teenagers. "Hip-hop seemed dangerous; it seemed angry," says Richard Nickels, who manages the hip-hop band the Roots. "Kurt Cobain killed himself, and rock seemed weak. But then you had these black guys who came out and had guns. It was exciting to white kids."

Hip-hop now faces a generation that takes gangsta rap as just another mundane marker in the cultural scenery. "It's collapsing because they can no longer fool the white kids," says Nickels. "There's only so much redundancy anyone can take."

Artists who never jumped on the gangsta bandwagon point the finger at the boardroom. They accuse major labels of strip-mining the music, playing up its sensationalist aspects for easy sales. "In rock you have metal, alternative, emo, soft rock, pop-rock, you have all these different strains," says Q-Tip, front man for the defunct A Tribe Called Quest. "And there are different strains of hip-hop, but record companies aren't set up to sell these different strains. They aren't set up to do anything more of a mature sort of hip-hop."

Of course, gangsta rap isn't a record-company invention. Indeed, hip-hop's two most celebrated icons, Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., embraced the sort of lyrical content that today has opened hip-hop to criticism. And the music companies, under assault from file-sharing and other alternative distribution channels, are hardly in a position to do R&D. "When I first signed to Tommy Boy, [the A&R person] would take us to different shows and to art museums," says Q-Tip. "There was real mentorship. Today that's largely absent, and we see the results in the music and in the aesthetic." That result is a stale product, defined by cable channels like BET, now owned by Viacom, which seems to consist primarily of gun worship and underdressed women.

During the past decade, record labels have outsourced the business of kingmaking to other artists. Established stars Dr. Dre and Eminem brought 50 Cent to Interscope. Jay-Z founded his own label, cut a distribution deal and began developing his own roster. But most established artists do little development. That leaves the possibility that hip-hop is following the same path that soul and R&B traveled when they descended into disco, which died quickly.

No longer able to peddle sensation, rap's moguls are switching tactics. Simmons, while still something of a hip-hop ambassador, is hawking a new self-help book. Master P, whose estimated worth was once $661 million, watched his label, No Limit, sink into bankruptcy. He recently announced the formation of Take a Stand Records, a label catering to "clean" hip-hop music. "Personally, I have profited millions of dollars through explicit rap lyrics," Master P stated on his website. "I can honestly say that I was once part of the problem, and now it's time to be part of the solution."

Chris Lighty, CEO of Violator Entertainment, whose clients include 50 Cent and Busta Rhymes, is looking at ways that record companies can work with artists in one area where rappers have been innovative: endorsement and branding. Whether it's 50 Cent owning a stake in Vitamin Water or Jay-Z doing a commercial for HP, most of these deals have been brokered by the artists' own camp. But Lighty sees in hip-hop a chance for record labels to generate more sponsorship and endorsements. "Record companies are going to have to make even better records and participate in brand extension. It's the only way they can survive," says Lighty. "We need to change the format, and this is the only way. 50 Cent is a brand. Jay-Z is a brand."

But the current hubbub over indecency poses a direct challenge to that brand strength, as the artist Akon recently discovered. While performing in Trinidad, Akon was videotaped dancing suggestively with a fan who was later revealed to be only 14. The video attracted the ire of conservatives like Bill O'Reilly. In the wake of the controversy, Akon's tour sponsor, Verizon, removed all ringtones featuring his work and retracted its sponsorship. The message was clear: Hip-hop needs a new and improved product. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...653639,00.html





50 Gets Frustrated With Early Leaks
FMQB

Album leaks seem to be inevitable these days, but early video leaks are not something you hear of every day. But it happened to 50 Cent when his video for the Robin Thicke collaboration "Follow My Lead" leaked onto the Internet last week, two or three months ahead of schedule. 50 was not happy about it, and the MC admitted to MTV News that his frustration sent him on a rampage in the G-Unit offices, tearing a plasma TV from the wall and tossing a cell phone through a window.

"I [got a] phone call and someone is telling me they seen the Robin Thicke video! It was a friend of mine, but he's from a different state," said 50. "Soon as [bootleggers] see something like that, they take the audio off the video, because they know it's not supposed to be out, [and leak the audio track online]. Then I start to get the phone calls, 'cause across the country the mix-show DJs start getting it. This record isn't even supposed to be out!" He added, "When is a video leaked? I never even heard of that before!"

50 said he feels like he's lost a hit record due to the leak of "Follow My Lead," and he's upset that he wasted time filming a video that's not going to be set up properly. "What bothers me is nothing is going according to the actual plan," he told MTV.

Meanwhile, he backed off his claim that he'll stop making solo records if Kanye West's new album sells more copies than his when they are both released on September 11. While he says West is a talented producer, 50 also said West is a "worker bee" while he's a "boss." 50 feels that West selling more would mean that "he did a better job than me on his album."

"Don't get lost in the hype," 50 concluded. "I got the right records, so we're gonna sit here and I'll see you next time. Maybe next time they can send me off to the pastures. But right now, I'm
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=457857





Rascal Flatts "Feels Good" About New CD

The clock on Rascal Flatts' Web site counts down the days, hours, minutes and even seconds until the September 25 release of the superstar band's fifth studio album, "Still Feels Good." There's no doubt the date is circled on many music industry calendars.

In a business in which album sales are off by double-digit percentages this year, more than a few people will be interested to see how Rascal Flatts will fare with its new Lyric Street release. After all, "Me and My Gang" scored the biggest first-week sales debut of 2006 when it moved 722,000 copies that April. Only four country acts have had bigger first weeks: Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks (twice), Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks.

The album was the second-best seller of 2006 behind "High School Musical," with 3.5 million copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Rascal Flatts is also one of the biggest success stories of the new century.

In addition to radio hits -- the band has seven No. 1s and 17 top 10s on Hot Country Songs, including its current "Take Me There," which is No. 7 this week -- it has performed exceptionally at retail. Its 2000 self-titled debut sold more than 2 million copies, and its last two albums have broken the 4 million plane. As a touring act, the band has played to increasingly larger crowds.

Getting Real

But the retail landscape has changed since the band's last release, and no act has had a sales week as big since. That fact is not lost on the band's Jay DeMarcus. "I'm a realist," he says. "I know that at some point there's got to be a ceiling somewhere. I remember thinking while we were all toasting each other for the last record, 'You know, this might be the last time anybody sells this many units out of the box, because of the digital world and the new world that we live in and how the Internet has affected record sales."'

Don't mistake DeMarcus' realism for defeatism. "I don't know if we'll do 722,000 units again in the first week ... but we're going to do everything we can to try and sell as many records as possible."

Lyric Street VP of sales, marketing and media Greg McCarn agrees. "There's a lot of questions as to what the top end is, given the deterioration of the marketplace, but whatever that can be, we'd like to repeat and have the biggest-debuting album of the year." If "Still Feels Good" doesn't perform as well as past records, it won't be for a lack of focus and effort. The band and producer Dann Huff dedicated a substantial amount of time to the new project.

"We got off the road for three months and just sat and banged it out in the studio," lead singer Gary LeVox says. "With the four previous albums, we'd come in off the road and knock some of it out for two or three days, and then go back on the road. This time we had more time to totally focus."

New Sounds

There's a well-known adage in Nashville that it all begins with a song. "The quality of songs are the best we've ever had -- lyrically and melodically," LeVox says.

Upon hearing the opening notes of I-want-to-get-to-know-you first single "Take Me There," there's no doubt it's a Rascal Flatts album. But the band offers new sounds as well. "We didn't want to reinvent the wheel, because if something's not broken we didn't feel the need to fix it," DeMarcus says. "But particularly when it comes to songs that the three of us write, we write whatever's in our heart at that moment. We've got a bluegrass tune that we've written for a bonus cut that is definitely different than anything we've done."

"Winner at a Losing Game" conjures '70s country-rock. The trio wrote it late one night on the bus after a show. "We kept it around and kept it around, and we kept playing it for Dann and Dann fell in love with it," DeMarcus says. "We wanted to try this different sort of thing with the production of it, and it ended up being one of our favorite things on the record."

Another departure is actor/singer Jamie Foxx's duet with LeVox on the soulful "She Goes All the Way." "We've never done a duet on one of our albums," LeVox says. "Jamie and I have been friends (for a long time), and so I called him up. He's always been one of my favorite singers -- he got two scoops of talent when they were dishing it out."

The band also recorded five bonus cuts, including the Beatles hit "Revolution," which appeared on the "Evan Almighty" soundtrack. "When Universal Pictures brought it to us, we thought, 'Oh, geez, the Beatles?"' LeVox recalls. "'You mean like the actual Beatles?' But you know, I think we did a good job of marrying us and the original. I actually sang through the same thing that John Lennon sang through -- it's called a Cooper tuner. It's like a hose-in-a-box kind of deal."

Overseeing the process was producer Huff (Faith Hill, Keith Urban), who worked with the trio on "Me and My Gang."

"Dann has been able to take us to another place and to better all three of us individually, not just as musicians, but as singers," the band's Joe Don Rooney says. "He's two things -- completely passionate and overly patient. With those two ingredients in a producer, that's all you need."
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/..._id=1003627248





Spitzer Signs Law Protecting Artists From Impersonators
FMQB

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has signed legislation protecting musicians from impersonators advertising themselves falsely. The Truth in Music Advertising Law was inspired by acts such as The Platters and The Coasters, who have had other groups falsely advertise themselves using their names, songs and routines.

The new law authorizes the Attorney General to protect the original artists' rights and prohibit "those who copy their style and performances through false representations such as invoking similar names, billings and promotion of the original artists by another performer."

"Music artists work for years to build names for themselves in the entertainment industry," said Governor Spitzer. "We should not allow others to impersonate their work and profit from that deception."

The law is nicknamed "the Bowzer Bill," because it was inspired by Jon "Bowzer" Bauman of Sha Na Na, who became involved in advocating the legislation around the country.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=462240





World's Largest Music Retailer Ditches DRM, not Censorship
Nate Anderson

Like a frog slowly turning into a princess, Wal-Mart's music download store has grown far more attractive now that it offers 256kbps unrestricted MP3 tracks from both EMI and Universal. It won't win over fans who like the other features of iTunes, but it can finally compete with Apple's media store for at least the value segment of the music download market.

Universal threatens contract shake-up with Apple, others may follow

DRM isn't yet dead in the music business, but it has a nasty, hacking cough. Wal-Mart is the latest company to ditch the DRM in an attempt to crack the coveted iPod market, which for years has been out of reach. The company announced this morning that it has embraced high-bitrate MP3s from Universal and EMI (iTunes only has DRM-free files from EMI, not from Universal), and it promises to continually expand its offerings.

Wal-Mart has actually run a download store for years, selling DRM-encumbered WMA files at $0.88 a pop. They couldn't play on either the iPod or the Zune, but at least they were cheap!

Now that the DRM shackles are loosening, Wal-Mart can offer a store with at least a chance of attracting customers. As a sign of how badly Wal-Mart want to attract iPod users, the music store doesn't list tracks as being DRM-free, but as being ready to "play on the iPod."

Because neither Warner nor Sony BMG are yet licensing their catalogs without DRM, many of the tracks at the store are still DRM-encumbered WMA files—it's a confusing situation and a huge drawback if the company wants iPod users to shop there. Most users don't think in terms of what record label their favorite artists appear on, so finding music for download can be a hit-and-miss affair. Still, there's not much that Wal-Mart can do except try to compete on price with its current selection of tracks and stress the fact that it has MP3s from Universal as well.

And pricing is competitive. The 256kbps MP3 tracks are available for $.94 apiece, which compares well with iTunes' $1.29 for 256kbps AAC files (though AAC is a more modern compression scheme). Wal-Mart's store can be accessed either through the browser or through Windows Media Player (version 9 and later); oddly, the browser-based store cannot be accessed when using Linux or Mac.

In a statement sent to Ars, Maura Corbett of the Digital Freedom Campaign praised the move. "Wal-Mart has become the world's largest retailer by putting their customers first and offering the products they want; today they took that philosophy digital," she said.

Common is commonly edited

It's a bit hard to believe that all the customers who shop at the world's largest retailer want censored versions of music, though, but that's what they get. Only edited versions of albums with parental advisories are available, just as they are in Wal-Mart's offline stores. This isn't a new policy; Wal-Mart's online music store has carried only edited versions for years, but it's worth pointing out to potential new users tempted by the lower prices and lack of DRM.

The policy is in contrast to iTunes, which offers both versions for sale and allows users to choose which version they wish to purchase. Wal-Mart has already made the decision for you, though, as part of its corporate policy, and it hits hard in the rap section of the site: six of the top ten rap and hip-hop albums have been edited.

Despite its best efforts, though, Wal-Mart warns users that "the use of the Edited notice does not necessarily mean that all content that all listeners might find objectionable has been removed from the recording." We'll have to wait and see whether the company's practice of selling only edited music will hamper its online efforts.

Universal thinks outside the gBox

DRM-free is the new black, apparently, and everyone is wearing it. Universal, which is snubbing Apple with its own restricted tracks, has instead agreed to an interesting marketing plan with new music site gBox. TechCrunch has a nice writeup of the deal, which will see Universal purchasing Google AdWords for its artists. Those AdWords ads will then point to gBox.

Rather than encouraging people to buy music for themselves, gBox hopes to popularize the idea of buying tracks and whole albums as gifts for friends. People create wish lists at the site, friends purchase tracks from those wish lists, and the list creator can then log in and download the tracks. Sounds like a neat idea, as most current stores make it difficult to buy digital content for others. Again, although it's browser-based, gBox only works on Windows due to a download plugin it uses.

We haven't yet entered the DRM-free paradise, but at least it's visible atop a distant hill. Hopefully, it's caused by something in the Perrier that all these executives are drinking and will soon spread to the movie business, which would do well to stop crippling movie download services with DRM and preventing burns to DVD. Removing AACS and its invasive demands on hardware and PC makers would also be great, but we'll keep that one in the "Winged Pigs" file for now.

After years of widespread piracy and thousands of deeply unpopular lawsuits, the music business is at least considering the idea that since they aren't going to thwart determined pirates, they might as well make it easy and cheap for consumers to make legal purchases. Hassling those who want to give you their money was never a solid business strategy, and the faster it fades away, the better.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ensorship.html





From February

YouTube Stars Don't Always Welcome Record Deals
Antony Bruno

The Dutch village of Oosterbeck is not a very big place -- population 31,944. So it must have been quite a shock when a local hotel received a phone call from Atlantic Records looking for assistance in tracking down an 18-year-old resident named Esmee Denters.

The label representative had the astonished hotel clerk provide phone numbers for every Denters listing in the local phone book and then called each one until he reached Esmee's very surprised mom.

That call was just one of many Denters has received from artist and repertoire (A&R) reps during the last five months to discuss a potential recording contract.

Never heard of her? Well, hundreds of thousands of YouTube members have. The doe-eyed girl-next-door with a soulful voice and shy smile has become a bona fide Internet sensation. She's posted videos of herself singing Beyonce, Monica and Natalie Imbruglia covers -- using nothing but a karaoke machine and her sister's low-tech webcam -- that have been streamed almost 8 million times. Nearly 20,000 fans have subscribed to her YouTube channel to receive automatic updates, with about 200 added a day, putting her at No. 22 on the all-time most-popular list.

Denters has since traveled to the United States and met a veritable who's who of the music industry's leading executives, from Jason Flom to Antonio "L.A." Reid to Tommy Motolla. She has recorded demo tracks with Kelly Rowland and is fielding TV deals with Sony Pictures Entertainment.

GOING IT ALONE

The obvious logical next step, then, is a record label deal, right? Not so fast.

"We may decide not to get together with a label," Denters said via phone, waiting for a flight from Los Angeles to New York for another round of meetings and recording sessions. "We may try new stuff. I've already accomplished so much on my own, we'd like to see what we can do with that."

Artists like Denters, emerging from the realm of user-generated media, have learned to tap the viral power of the Internet to do what acts a generation ago could only dream of -- build a grassroots following numbering in the thousands at very little cost or effort.

But being talented and building a fan base is only part of the equation. Artists who decide to go it alone must bear the full financial weight of the various aspects of a music career -- recording and production fees, distribution costs, marketing and promotion expenses and more.

These costs are falling in the digital age. Recording and production fees can be extraordinarily cheap, depending on the level of sophistication desired. Tech-savvy artists can further cut costs with a good laptop and ProTools.

Distribution can be done digitally through such firms as the Orchard or INgrooves, which take a flat percentage of each sale for their efforts. Physical sales can be handled by CD Baby at $4 a pop. There are a gaggle of online services designed to host commerce and promotional sites for unsigned acts as part of a "music social network," most notably PureVolume and Sellaband.com. Companies like Musictoday can serve as a one-stop shop for artists for Web site hosting and design, digital downloads, concert ticket sales, CD replication, fan club management, and merchandise sales and fulfillment.

For licensing, digital services like Rumblefish, PumpAudio and even some digital distribution firms like the Orchard promote their clients' work to advertising firms and film producers and charge only a percentage of the licensing fee in return. And since they've taken no recoupable advance, these artists get to keep all the proceeds.

PROMOTIONAL POWER

Yet the reality is that no act has carved out a lucrative career doing all this on its own. Many point to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah as a DIY success story. And while it's true that the band declined to sign to a label for either its 2005 self-titled debut or its sophomore album, "Some Loud Thunder," released January 30, the band did secure major-label-affiliated distribution through the Alternative Distribution Alliance. After capitalizing on blog buzz the first time around and selling more than 125,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the band has sold only 29,000 copies of its follow-up so far.

The hard part for DIY bands is mass retail and radio promotion, an area where record labels still hold tremendous sway.

"There are relationships and leverage that labels have with retail and radio placement," says Ryan Leslie, a producer, manager, artist and head of new-media marketing firm NextSelection. The company was behind the MySpace marketing of newcomer Cassie and is now working with another YouTube star, Mia Rose. Leslie also brought Denters to the United States for her initial round of industry meetings. "The majority of CDs is bought in the major chains, (and) radio is still one of the greatest outlets to discover music," he says.

Denter's producer/manager, Billy Mann, says that label meetings so far have been thought-provoking. "It's been really interesting hearing their point of view on how they would harness all this YouTube activity that she'd created on her own," says Mann, who has written hit songs for Pink and Jessica Simpson. "How does the music business then link arms with that and help move it forward?"

While Mann ponders such questions, labels are busy trying to decide just how much value to place on the kind of fan base that Denters has accrued. A&R reps are unsure exactly how metrics like 20,000 YouTube subscribers or MySpace friends relate to potential customers.

"Strong online popularity doesn't necessarily translate to real sales," says Steve Yegelwel, senior VP of A&R at Columbia Records.

Yegelwel cites OK Go to support his point. The act's famous "treadmill" video for the single "Here It Goes Again" was an Internet viral smash, viewed more than 1 million times on Yahoo Music and more than 11 million times on YouTube. But the album "Oh No" has sold slightly more than 200,000 copies, and the single was downloaded a little more than 450,000 times. Many of those sales came after the song was added to more traditional promotional outlets such as MTV.

KEYSTROKE OF SUPPORT

In the past, an artist's potential could be measured by how many people attended their shows or bought their CDs. But with the convenience factor of the Internet, it's easy to sign up to support the artist without the two points of sacrifice used to judge true attachment -- time and money.

"They don't have to wait in the cold for a ticket," says Jordy Trachtenberg, vice president of content acquisition and A&R for the Orchard and former owner of indie label Gammon Records. "They're just sitting in their bedroom. The biggest effort is their finger pressing down."

Yegelwel adds: "Everybody wishes there was some formula you could just plug in and determine whether there's more of a likelihood that that band will do well."

MySpace hopes to address that concern by giving artists the ability to sell music directly from their MySpace profiles or through the profiles of their fans, called the MyStore. This will give A&R reps a more tangible metric by which to judge an artist -- downloads sold, rather than streams or friends.

But since MySpace began offering the service as a "soft launch" in December, few artists have adopted it. Among the top 20 unsigned acts on MySpace, none have a MyStore module on their profile page. SnoCap, the company that operates the service, in late January lowered its per-track commission from 45 cents to 39 cents to spur more adoption.

Denters, for one, has her fans -- both virtual and real. Two YouTube fans, who have posted multiple videos of themselves singing along to her songs, took the time and effort to meet her at the airport in New York when she arrived in the United States in early February. Despite having no idea what flight she was on, they showed up at John F. Kennedy International Airport with "Welcome Esmee" signs, waiting as passengers from virtually every flight from Europe arrived until Denters appeared.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...18918320070226

In June Esmee Denters walked down the isle -- with Justin Timberlake’s Tennman label, a unit of Vivendi/Universal – Jack.





Emerging Bands Expand Global Digital Reach With NFT Technology
Press Release

Emerging unsigned bands with homepages on MySpace are always looking for creative ways to reach more fans and at the same time gain the attention of record labels. Locally based band Without Tomorrow accomplished both with a live Internet broadcast performance from The Boardwalk in Orangevale, CA. "We just recently reached over a million song plays on our MySpace page and thought that it would be great to celebrate that milestone with a free live concert broadcast over the internet", said Jeremy Unruh, the bands co-founder and drummer, "But until we found NFT, the bandwidth cost to reach all our fans was way too much." Made possible by Network Foundation Technologies (NFT) patented software, the group was able to leverage off their huge MySpace fan base, and interact live with their massive fan base all over the world. The concert was enjoyed by viewers from across the country.

Network Foundation Technologies has broadcast similar events for Stone Sour (Roadrunner Records), and for former Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland’s new project Black Light Burns (AMG), in partnership with FMQB.

Fred Deane CEO, FMQB, remarked, "We believe NFT technology opens up a whole new era of opportunities for the entire spectrum of the music business, particularly for emerging artists." Marcus Morton, President of Network Foundation Technologies added, "This is the first time that an up and coming band has been able to reach beyond the pages of MySpace and give a live worldwide concert to all their fans free of charge, and we are delighted to have been able to make this broadcast possible. We believe this opens up incredible opportunities for other MySpace bands to expand their fan base."

In March 2007, FMQB and Network Foundation Technologies (NFT) formed a partnership to expand the online presence of music and radio industry clients via live broadcasts of industry and artist events, as well as customized content. Network Foundation Technologies is a name that is quickly becoming synonymous with the online broadcasting of large, live events to world-wide audiences. The company’s patented technology used in its NiFTy Online Broadcasting product, is the most efficient and successful method for enabling distributed video broadcasting over the Internet. For more information please visit www.NiFTy-tv.com.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=457224





Ken Sharp Touts The Return of The Raspberries

SWEETER THAN EVER… THE RASPBERRIES RETURN…

More than three decades since they released their last record, 1974’s acclaimed Starting Over (voted by Rolling Stone as one of the best albums of the year), Cleveland’s seminal power pop titans The Raspberries return with a terrific new CD, Raspberries Live On Sunset Strip (Rykodisc). Recorded live at L.A.’s House Of Blues in October of 2005, the CD is available in two configurations: a 13-track greatest hits collection and 21-song set with bonus DVD containing five cuts filmed at the L.A. show - “I Wanna Be With You,” “Tonight,” “Ecstasy,” "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)” and "Go All The Way.” Raspberries Live On Sunset Strip delivers on all fronts. It’s a marvelous primer of timeless power pop, picture-perfect songs boasting sweeping melodies, lush harmonies, and fiery musicianship.

Produced by Eric Carmen and Mark Linett, renowned for his work on Brian Wilson’s Grammy nominated Smile album, Live On Sunset Strip is crammed with all the essential Raspberries gems - “Go All The Way,” "I Wanna Be With You,” “Tonight,” “Ecstasy,” “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” “If You Change Your Mind,” “Let’s Pretend,” “Nobody Knows,” “Last Dance,” “Hard To Get Over a Heartbreak,” “Party’s Over,” “Should I Wait,” “I Can Remember” and countless others. What’s most impressive about the CD is how good these songs sound 30 years on. Whether tackling the Small Faces fueled incendiary pop/rock aggression of “Tonight”, country-rock stylings of “Should I Wait” and “Last Dance” or more complex, orchestrated fare like “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)” or “I Can Remember,” the band nails it. Perhaps even more surprisingly, many of these live reworkings, benefiting from current technology and the band’s seasoned musicianship, sound more full-bodied and explosive than the original Capitol recordings. And that’s no mean feat.

Showcasing liner notes penned by long-time fan Bruce Springsteen who enthuses, “Dismissed at the time of their chart dominance for having 'hits' (Fools!), they are THE great underrated power pop masters." the music legend firepower doesn’t stop there. Inside the booklet is a 1974 photo of fellow fan John Lennon proudly wearing a Raspberries sweatshirt. In the summer of 1974, while recording their final album at New York’s Record Plant, the group shared the studio with Lennon who was working in an adjacent studio producing Harry Nilsson’s Pussycats. Lennon popped into a few sessions and loved what he heard.

Embarking on a 10-date reunion trek in 2004-2005, the original lineup of the Raspberries - lead singer/ guitarist/ keyboardist Eric Carmen, lead guitarist Wally Bryson, bassist Dave Smalley and drummer Jim Bonfanti - wowed audiences by sounding better than ever.

For this listener, perhaps the highlight of the live set is the group’s spectacular rendition of “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” a song selected by Rolling Stone as one of the top 100 singles of all time. Lauded in concert by Springsteen as “one of the best pop symphonies you’ll ever hear,” the live version of this classic is breathtaking; from the intricate classical motifs that grace the song’s beginning to the uncanny AM radio speaker sound effect that seamlessly merges into the song’s climactic and cinematic “Wall Of Sound” kitchen-sink ending, it’s an aural knockout. Also noteworthy is the band's foray into the harder rock echelon of their catalog. "Tonight" and "Ecstacy" both sizzle with incandescent energy and DNA altering kinetic power. Carmen introduces another live powerhouse, "I Don't Know What I Want" as "my love letter to the Who" and he ain't kiddin'. With an affectionate tip of the hat to Who signature classics "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "I'm A Boy," "I Don't Know What I Want" proves the Raspberries could rock with the best of them. Opening with the sound of a boxing bell, Carmen's spectacular vocal and Bryson's slammin' guitar fireworks dropkick this track into aural heaven.

Rounding up such heavyweight fans as Elton John, Tom Petty, Paul Stanley of KISS, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Cheap Trick, Nirvana, Jon Bon Jovi, Motley Crue and others, the Raspberries are also cited as a pivotal influence on contemporary acts like Fountains of Wayne and Rooney. Lead guitarist Bryson touches on the band’s appeal to a younger generation, saying, “It’s a great feeling to know that young people are into our music. While doing their research and their homework they’ve somehow hit upon us. They find us melodic and musically valid and that’s really great to know."

Hardcore fans may also want to investigate a special edition package made available exclusively through the group’s Web site, www.raspberriesonline.com. The limited edition includes a DVD of the full 21-song show filmed by Jim Bullotta and Kent Hagen, the pre-concert video, a documentary tracing the reunion packed with backstage, soundcheck and rehearsal footage, fan testimonials, plus a live clip of “I Wanna Be With You,” the first song performed at the group’s kickoff reunion show at Cleveland’s House Of Blues taped in November 2004. The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. Audio of a 1973 Armed Forces Network live radio broadcast in Frankfurt, Germany including a spirited run through of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" and unreleased instrumental track, "Raspberry Jam," vintage unreleased demos (“Please Let Me Home Back Home” and “Oh Tonight),” '70s era home movies of the group in the States and Europe, including footage of the band in the studio recording their 1973 album, Side 3, unseen interviews taped for the band’s VH1 “Hanging with Raspberries” TV special and much more make this an essential purchase for any self-respecting music fan.

As for any new Raspberries music, Bonfanti reveals, “I’d like us to go back into the studio. It would be so much fun to do that. I’m always being asked, ‘What about the future?’ Who knows? This thing seems to have a mind of its own. In a funny sense it seems to be taking us where it wants to take us and we almost have no say in it now.”
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=115421





Outrageous Farce From R. Kelly: He’s In on the Joke, Right?
Kelefa Sanneh

What is there to say, really, about a multipart R&B soap opera cum sex farce starring an expanding cast of actors and actresses, all lip-syncing to the increasingly kaleidoscopic story-songs of a pop star once known for slow jams and “I Believe I Can Fly”?

Plenty, it seems. Because people have been talking about R. Kelly’s unprecedented audiovisual opus, “Trapped in the Closet,” ever since its premiere, two summers ago. A 5-part single mushroomed into a 12-part DVD, and in retrospect, his timing looks perfect. The DVD arrived in late 2005, just as YouTube was taking off, and “Trapped” became a viral hit. It was the kind of pop spectacle you had to see to believe; thanks to the online video explosion you could.

Back then, Mr. Kelly promised that “Trapped” would return, and now it has: the IFC channel’s Web site has been showing a new episode every day, leading up to tomorrow’s DVD release of “Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 13-22” (Jive). Mr. Kelly’s outlandish achievement seems to inspire overstatement, especially online. The Web site for New York magazine (nymag.com) proclaimed this “the cultural event of the year,” while one fairly typical commenter at ifc.com called it “a perfect storm of the worst artistry ever.”

No doubt Mr. Kelly is enjoying all the attention. He seems drawn to the idea of being an old-fashioned all-around entertainer, and he has recently taken to performing beneath a lit-up sign that reads, “R. Kelly as Mr. Show Biz.” He already stands as one of the last true giants in the twinned worlds of R&B and hip-hop, and now he’s relishing the idea of branching out into IFC territory. (He told Variety he “thought of ‘Trapped’ as an independent film.”) Mr. Kelly seems giddier than ever.

And yet there is something slightly unnerving about the kind of attention “Trapped in the Closet” has received. Many of its biggest fans seem to think they’re laughing at Mr. Kelly, not with him, as if the whole thing were some sort of glorious, terrible mistake; as if the far-fetched plot turns (most infamously, the policeman cuckolded by the “midget” hiding beneath the sink) and cliffhanger endings (“Oh my God, a rubber!”) were the work of someone who set out to make a traditional musical and failed. It’s hard to think of a work that has inspired more parodies, from Weird Al to Jimmy Kimmel, from sketch comedy to cabaret. Why do so many people think the funniest pop star on the planet is the butt of the joke when he is so obviously in on it?

Maybe it comes with the territory. R&B lovermen have long been parodied as comically earnest lotharios, blissfully unaware of how ridiculous they sound. But Mr. Kelly long ago realized that a subtle joke, or an unsubtle one, can make a slow jam feel more intimate and therefore more effective. No doubt more than a few couples have used “Feelin on Yo Booty” as mood music, chuckling contentedly when the chorus suddenly morphs into a yodeling demonstration.

Listen closely, and you can hear Mr. Kelly chuckling too. Ever since the appearance in 2002 of a video that the police say shows him with an under-age girl, his jokes have grown bigger and sillier. Maybe that’s an expression of his relief at the way his career has rebounded from scandal. Or maybe it’s an expression of his continuing anxiety about his forthcoming trial on charges of child pornography. (It is scheduled to start Sept. 17 in Chicago.) Or maybe it’s just a phase.

If it is a phase, it’s an extraordinarily entertaining one. Mr. Kelly’s obsession with comedy is also an obsession with plot and narrative. And his most recent album, “Double Up,” contains elegant theatrical songs like “Same Girl,” the hit Usher duet about a two-timing woman; “Best Friend,” a prison drama; and “Real Talk,” a defensive boyfriend’s bilious rant. In this last song, Mr. Kelly takes an absurd three-word phrase — “Is you tweakin’?” — and makes it funny, scary, believable and diabolically catchy. “Trapped in the Closet” may be an anomaly, but it’s no fluke.

Some “Trapped” fans may think they’re flattering Mr. Kelly by praising his alleged insanity or naïveté, but that’s the kind of praise that can easily sound like condescension, especially when directed (as it often is) at African-American performers. And some IFC viewers might not know that Mr. Kelly is deploying some of the same dramatic devices you can find in the world of urban theater, sometimes affectionately or derisively called the chitlin circuit.” Many of his stock characters (the pastor with a secret, the nosy neighbors, the semireformed ex-con, the stuttering pimp) and melodramatic revelations would be at home in a play by Tyler Perry, Shelly Garrett, Angela Barrow-Dunlap or David E. Talbert.

As “Trapped” spirals out from its soap opera beginnings, the action and the songwriting get looser, in ways good and bad. There are some great and cheerfully extraneous scenes in a church, when the familiar backing track gives way to comic gospel. Mr. Kelly adopts more roles, and in Chapter 15 he gets an unlikely co-star: the indie-rock hero Will Oldham, on screen for only a few seconds. And although “Trapped” isn’t tuneless, exactly, Mr. Kelly generally recycles the same few tunes, and sometimes chooses exposition over meter.

In the new chapters, as in the old ones, there are some marvelous set pieces: scenes full of carefully choreographed cross-talk, an echo of the famous closet scene from Chapter 1, an oddly pretty evocation of poor cellphone reception (“Static-in’,” he explains, sotto voce), an occasional dash of falsetto sweetness. There are missteps too, especially an overlong Mafia scene. You can also feel Mr. Kelly drift further from the tension and claustrophobia that characterized the early episodes.

In the beginning “Trapped” was rooted in the first-person narration of Mr. Kelly as Sylvester: “7 o’clock in the morning, and rays from the sun wakes me.” By Chapter 8 Mr. Kelly had acquired a second role as the cigar-smoking narrator, broadening the story’s scope (we could see things Sylvester didn’t) but slightly undermining its intensity. And by Chapter 10 Sylvester’s speech had gone third person: “Sylvester said,” instead of “I said.” That was when the plot got more farcical; instead of inhabiting Sylvester, Mr. Kelly was toying with him or making him a bystander. One odd thing about the new chapters is that nothing much happens to Sylvester.

At least until near the end. No one likes a spoiler, but suffice it to say that Mr. Kelly finds a clever way to bring the story back to its sex-and-deception roots, culminating in a mesmerizing song composed of phone-call fragments. It’s eerie and funny, a reminder that Mr. Kelly can make great music more or less whenever he feels like it. And, just when you thought this was all an elaborate joke, the ending is surprisingly sad. Surely Chapter 23, whenever it comes, will bring — well, it would be foolish to guess. But here’s hoping Mr. Kelly’s dramatic phase isn’t over yet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/ar...ic/20trap.html





Dylan Movie to Open Like a Rolling Premiere
John Anderson

Imagine you’re a film distributor, handling an experimental movie by one of the country’s most iconoclastic directors. The subject is an enigmatic occasional recluse who is being portrayed by four actors, an actress and a 13-year-old boy. Where do you open that film?

If you’re very lucky, you get to book it at Film Forum, perhaps the most exclusive art-house cinema in Manhattan.

Now what do you do with a movie that stars Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale and Heath Ledger; whose subject is Bob Dylan; and whose director is the Oscar-nominated Todd Haynes?

Same answer. Same film. Which is what’s making the planned Nov. 21 release of “I’m Not There,” Mr. Haynes’s rumination on Mr. Dylan’s lives and times, something of a curiosity.

In addition to Film Forum, the film’s distributor, the Weinstein Company, will be opening the movie in just three other theaters, one more in New York and two in Los Angeles, giving it the kind of debut that might be afforded a Mexican documentary. Even “Velvet Goldmine” — the previous Weinstein-Haynes collaboration, about the British glam-rock scene of the 1970s, which starred an unknown Jonathan Rhys Meyers — began in 85 theaters in 1998.

But Harvey Weinstein, the company’s co-chairman, said the slow rollout was the best way to nurture an unconventional, nonlinear movie like “I’m Not There,” in which the above-mentioned stars play Mr. Dylan at particular stages of his life. Shot in styles that correspond to each Dylan epoch, “I’m Not There” sometimes looks like “A Hard Day’s Night,” elsewhere like “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” with Mr. Dylan’s life being imbued with mythic American qualities.

“With a movie like this you have to build it,” said Mr. Weinstein, who founded the company with his brother, Bob, two years ago after an acrimonious split from the Walt Disney Company saw them relinquish control of Miramax. “I don’t think you can go out on 500 screens. The reason for Film Forum is you go where the best word of mouth is on the movie. I like the movie; I think it’s adventurous. The audience is going to have to work — work in a good way.”

Mr. Weinstein said that a similar approach had worked for two of Miramax’s biggest successes. “Good Will Hunting” opened in New York and Los Angeles and eventually brought in nearly $140 million at the domestic box office, while “Chicago” began the same way and grossed $170 million. Those films had larger openings, however: “Good Will Hunting” (with the rising stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) in 7 theaters, “Chicago” in 77.

“I’m not saying this movie’s going to come anywhere near those,” Mr. Weinstein said, “but I have a tendency to start small and go big. If we threw this movie out wide, I don’t know what it would do. I think we have to start somewhere.”

The “somewhere” means Film Forum, “a real cathedral of cinema” according to Mr. Haynes’s longtime producer, Christine Vachon, which has presented the premieres of work by Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Hal Hartley, Claude Chabrol, Spike Lee and Lars von Trier, among many others. But rarely does it get star-laden films like “I’m Not There.” And for it to agree to have another theater share a New York premiere is a rare move.

“We did it with ‘Saraband,’ ” said Karen Cooper, Film Forum’s director, referring to Mr. Bergman’s last American release. “Lincoln Plaza opened it the same day, and I don’t think either of us were happy. I thought the same crowd that lined up to see ‘Scenes From a Marriage’ would want to see ‘Scenes From a Divorce.’ I was wrong.”

Ms. Cooper said that she was offered shared openings all the time and regularly turned them down. But she said that she and Mike Maggiore, Film Forum’s programmer and publicist, decided the Haynes film was so remarkable that they would not mind sharing it with Lincoln Plaza. In Los Angeles, “I’m Not There” will open at the Westside Pavilion and ArcLight Cinemas.

Conventional movie-business wisdom says that if a film fails to catch fire at its opening theater, it will not move much farther. But Mr. Weinstein said there was “not a chance” he would not take this film into more theaters and cities, regardless of its fate on the coasts. “I’m going to play every major city in the United States with this movie,” he said. “I’ll play 100 cities, at least.”

He said he also planned to position Ms. Blanchett, who plays Mr. Dylan during his “Blonde on Blonde” phase, for an Oscar. (Mr. Bale corresponds to “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” Mr. Ledger to “John Wesley Harding.”)

“I may be jumping the gun,” Mr. Weinstein said, “but if Cate Blanchett doesn’t get nominated, I’ll shoot myself.”

Films considered Oscar-worthy are released in various ways. Last year, Pedro Almodóvar’s “Volver” and its star, Penélope Cruz, were seen as possible contenders, but Sony Pictures Classics opened the film in only six theaters. (It ultimately grossed close to $13 million.) Another nominee-to-be, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” opened on 17 screens. It has made approximately $37 million. Both those films, however, were in Spanish, and foreign-language films are a hard sell to the American moviegoer.

“I’m Not There,” which will play at film festivals in Venice, Toronto and New York, is Mr. Haynes’s first movie since “Far From Heaven,” his critically acclaimed 2002 homage to the melodramas of Douglas Sirk. The film, which has Mr. Dylan’s blessing, is also, according to Ms. Vachon, his most expensive film, although she declined to divulge the amount. (“Far From Heaven” cost $13.5 million, according to boxofficemojo.com.)

Though Mr. Haynes, who was unavailable for this article, has never had a major commercial success except for “Far From Heaven,” he has never suffered a lack of critical acclaim. His “Poison,” for example, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991, and “Far From Heaven” received four Academy Award nominations, including one for its star, Julianne Moore. But Mr. Weinstein said the decision to pick up “I’m Not There” was not purely about making money but about an obligation to have important movies distributed.

“That’s the story of my life,” he said. “That’s exactly what I believe in. ‘I’m Not There’ and some of the tougher stuff — it’s not going to be ‘The Nanny Diaries,’ you know. But I’ve been very fortunate that what I’ve believed in has worked, and even when it doesn’t work, we make money in other areas to cover that. It is my responsibility and, more importantly, it’s my passion.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/movies/21dyla.html





A Return to That Drop-Dead Year 1960
Ruth La Ferla



I’M from Bay Ridge. We have manners,” Peggy, the pony-tailed secretary, scolds the colleague who has just propositioned her in “Mad Men,” the new drama on the cable channel AMC. Do Peggy’s colleagues at Sterling Cooper, the turbo-powered advertising agency where she works, fall a little short in that department?

No matter. They have style.

The “girls” in the steno pool, the nakedly striving junior executives, the smooth-talking bosses and their stay-at-home wives have done their best to acquire the veneer of graceful gestures that stand in for real courtesy. Their mannerisms, and their sleek appurtenances, come with the turf: the steel-and-glass landscape of Madison Avenue in 1960, where burled wood and frosted-glass-panel interiors form a sumptuous backdrop against which the players stride about in sheaths and glen plaid suits.

Taking it all in, viewers may find themselves hooked, not just on the show’s artfully shaded characterizations and plot twists, but on its insistent attention to detail. To a style aficionado, “Mad Men” is that rare TV show in which an ashtray, a lipstick or an aerosol tin gets star treatment, and is a protagonist in its own right.

Why not? “The story is told in the details, and those details have their own life,” said Matthew Weiner, who conceived and wrote the series. Spiffed up by amber lighting, the camera lingering almost lewdly on a whiskey tumbler, a gilded compact or the polished surface of a conference table, those details reflect the growing materialism of the Eisenhower years.

Jaeger-LeCoultre watches, Delman pumps and Buick sedans are as essential to the action as a glistening smile or arched brow — projections of the characters’ idealized selves. His hair slicked with Brylcreem and flashing cuff links, Don Draper, Sterling Cooper’s brooding creative director, can imagine himself an impenetrably suave Lothario. In her scarlet-lined kimono, Midge, his mistress, can convince herself that she is a faintly louche, spirited adventuress. Floating into a party, Betty, his wife, can play the suburban princess in crinolines and pearls.

That fixation on objects, surfaces and status signifiers also holds up a mirror to the fetishistic obsessions of the present day. It would hardly seem alien to an aspiring red-carpet queen swinging an outsize Balenciaga tote, or to an ambitious young Manhattan trader girded for battle in a Hugo Boss suit.

Or, for that matter, to a fashion addict, who would surely note that the show’s aura of pulled-together formality is in step with the look of the runways, which returned this fall to mannerly 1950s-inflected tailoring.

From a modern vantage, it is easy to forget that 1960 was a watershed. An election loomed, the Pill became widely available, and there dawned a conviction, one later promoted by Andy Warhol and his ilk, that image trumps content, that style and substance may in fact be all but interchangeable.

The seeds of that notion were planted during the newly prosperous postwar years. Happiness then was not some hard-won spiritual attainment. In Don’s glib assessment, it was rather “the smell of a new car ... freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams: ‘Whatever you’re doing, is O.K. You are O.K.’ ”

In such a climate, a presidential candidate could turn unembarrassed to an agency like Sterling Cooper to rev up his image. Who knew better than Madison Avenue’s tastemakers that putting him across was largely a matter of packaging? As Don is told by Roger, his mentor: “Consider the product: He’s young, handsome, a Navy hero.

“Honestly, it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince America that Nixon is a winner.”

Like Nixon’s infamous five o’clock shadow, a dusting of grit mars the otherwise sleek surfaces of “Mad Men.” That is by design, said Mr. Weiner, a former writer and producer of “The Sopranos.” Not a single prop is an afterthought, he said. “The metal fixture that clasps like a clothespin onto the guest towel — my grandmother had it, my mother had it,” Mr. Weiner said. “It’s actually written into the script.”

Roughly $2.5 million went into the filming of each episode. “All of that money has been funneled onto the screen,” he added, down to the conference tables coated in cigarette ash, and the homely touches bestowed on the characters — wrinkled shirts, sweat stains, ill-applied makeup — that lend the show an air of authenticity.

“The period is usually very glamorized,” Mr. Weiner said. Production teams, he pointed out, generally look to films like “The Best of Everything,” or Vogue or Architectural Digest, to ferret out examples of the crystal tumblers, towering beehives and pristine swing coats thought to typify the period.

“I told them that’s not the way it works,” Mr. Weiner said. “We are not doing a show from the perspective of the movies. We are doing a show about the people who watch those movies. Often they are imitating what they see.”

Imperfect creatures, they mix and match at home, placing a streamlined silver-tone coffee brewer in front of rustically patterned cafe curtains. Their drawers are full. So are their garbage pails.

Even their hair and accessories are not always tidy or up to date. “We looked at Vogue, but we also looked at the Sears catalog,” Mr. Weiner said. In the idealized world of a ’50s movie, Don might drive a Cadillac. In “Mad Men,” he drives a Buick LeSabre. In “The Best of Everything,” Hope Lange is coiffed to perfection, not a hair out of place. On “Mad Men,” chignons tumble, pageboys wilt.

“The secretary has to have a hairstyle that will basically degrade over five days of the week,” Mr. Weiner explained. “And each character has a closet — she will wear the same six dresses during a single season.”

At times throwaway gestures betray an infatuation with Hollywood and distinguish the characters from their modern counterparts. Women deftly roll down their stockings and shut their compacts with a definitive click; men flick at their lighters and habitually tug at their ties. As Mr. Weiner pointed out, they loosen the knots in private, but snap them back into place the moment a female enters the room.

An uptight move, it did not betoken good manners exactly. But it was good style.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/fashion/23MAD.html





A Fourth Way to Deliver TV to the Home
Brad Stone

One of the most covert startups in Silicon Valley, the temporarily named Building B, is lifting its head up today to announce a round of funding. Though executives at the Belmont, Calif. company still aren’t saying much about their plans, they appear have sizeable ambitions: Building B is aiming to bring both television and other media content, restyled for the Internet age, into your living room in competition with your cable, satellite or telco’s IPTV service.

Today, Building B announces a $17 million round of funding by venture capital firms Morgenthaler Ventures, Index Ventures, Omni Capital and private investors. Andy Lack, the chairman of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, is joining its board of directors. The 14 month-old company was started by longtime investor and entrepreneur Buno Pati and Phil Wiser, the former chief technology officer of Sony Corporation of America. Last week, they offered a few details about their plans.

The company appears to be developing an entirely new experience for the home television. By the end of the year they will start selling a set-top box, either through partners or in retail. The box plugs into your television, in the same dusty space where your cable or satellite box used to chug away.

The service, as I understood it, will get both the popular channels as well as the more niche fair (like overseas cricket matches or user-generated videos) that is now delivered over the Internet. Behind the scenes, the service is a hybrid. It will receive the major channels in high-definition through wireless broadcasts (think rabbit ears). The company won’t say how they’ll broadcast this content, but since the small firm does not own any spectrum itself, one possibility is that Building B plans to lease digital spectrum from local television stations.

Meanwhile, the Building B device will receive less popular content over a broadband Internet connection. Movies, old TV shows, perhaps even music will also be available on demand and delivered in this way as well.

“We see ourselves as delivering next generation of television without forcing consumers to walk over to the PC to get access to it,” Mr. Wiser said.

“The biggest advantage we have is an advantage that every startup has – no legacy,” Mr. Pati added. “We were able to ask ourselves, if we were to put together a video entertainment solution today, what would it look like?”

The company may not go directly to retailers with the service. The founders hinted the service would be a perfect “video companion” for ISPs or telcos who have not yet made big IPTV investments but are looking to offer comprehensive “triple play” packages to customers. Expect to hear more from Building B this fall.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0.../index.html?hp





More details on Sony's new PlayTV
Joshua Topolsky

The info is flying fast today as Sony's launches a multi-tiered attack on the entertainment community. Luckily, we've got some additional info on the just announced PlayTV TV tuner / DVR for the PS3, and we'd like to share it. The unit will apparently be coming to Europe "early in 2008" with other territories to follow (PAL only for now). The new box will feature two 1080p tuners, which utilize the European Digital Video Broadcasting system (DVB-T) -- which should dash any US hopes for the time being.

The system will allow you to store recorded broadcasts on your PS3 drive, and also transcode and transfer the saved files to your PSP. Additionally, you'll be able to use the PSP's "Remote Play" feature to program and watch your PlayTV away from home. Sony reps also make the bold pronouncement that the PlayTV architecture will "never be out of date" due to automatic network updates from the company. We're gutted that the US gets no love from Sony on this one, but it's a good time to be a European PlayStation 3 fan, that's for sure.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/22/m...ys-new-playtv/

Sony’s PlayTV press release is here - Jack.





Important Warning Regarding New HD TiVo and Cable System Incompatibilities
Lauren Weinstein

Greetings. You may have seen much (deserved) hoopla regarding the new relatively low-priced HD TiVo, that uses CableCARD technology to allow a direct interface between digital cable systems and the TiVo unit.

While it is generally understood that the current generation of these devices (this may well change within a year or two) cannot access two-way cable services such as Pay Per View (PPV) or Video On Demand (VOD), many potential buyers of this TiVo product may not be aware of concerns regarding the use of Switched Digital Video (SDV) on an increasing number of cable systems.

Briefly, SDV technology -- which is being aggressively deployed by Time Warner Cable and also by many other large and small systems -- requires two-way communications with the cable company servers to allow the customer to access all of the available channels. Without this capability, those channels on a cable system being managed via SDV would typically be inaccessible to the associated devices.

Since existing third-party CableCARD host devices of types including the new HD TiVo don't currently support the necessary two-way operations, users of these devices (including the new TiVo) could find themselves unable to watch or record channels of interest (the exact set of which will vary from system to system over time).

While there are continuing statements that the cable companies and TiVo are working on some sort of solution to this problem (keep in mind that CableCARD compatibility is an FCC mandate), no specifics on any possible "fix" or time frame for such a fix have been forthcoming.

There indeed are ways that the problem could be worked around. For example, signaling over the Internet could be used (newer TiVos are Internet compatible). Or, some sort of external device associated with one of the TiVo's various interfaces could be employed to communicate back to the cable system servers.

However, until there are more details available, such workarounds appear to be rather speculative right now. On the other hand, deployment of SDV and the problems it could cause for CableCARD TiVo users are very real and in some cases immediate.

I'm definitely not saying that you absolutely shouldn't buy the new HD TiVo -- it's a very nice box. But be warned that these potentially serious issues do exist at this time.
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000273.html





FCC's Martin Supports 'A La Carte' Cable Plans
PC Magazine Staff

FCC chairman Kevin Martin expressed his support for a la carte cable programming in a letter sent to several minority groups on Wednesday.

Martin said his support of a la carte programming, a position that argues that consumers should be allowed to buy channels individually rather than as a bulk package, would actually assist poorer minority groups. He noted that a Nielsen Media Research study pointed out that an average cable subscriber was paying for 85 channels when in reality that consumer only watched 16.

"Channel choice is increasingly significant to consumers as the number of channels included in expanded basic, and the corresponding price to consumers, has continued to skyrocket," Martin wrote. "Indeed, cable rates have more than doubled in the last ten years. Cable companies often point to the increased number of channels being offered as an explanation for the increase in prices. This explanation, however, ignores the fact that most of these channels are not actually being watched.

"While I believe all consumers would benefit from channels being sold in a more a la carte manner, minority consumers, especially those living in Spanish speaking homes, might benefit most of all," Martin said. Those consumers typically have to buy large, expensive blocks of channels to access Spanish-language channels, he said.

Martin said that allowing a la carte purchasing could diversify programming, He cited a case where the Black Family Channel was forced to become an online-only network, after cable providers refused to offer the channel -- even after the channel reached 16 million homes across the nation.

"'Cable companies act as gatekeepers into the programming allowed by the expanded basic cable package, preventing independent content producers from reaching viewers,'" Martin wrote, citing a letter written by Consumers' Union to the U.S. Congress. "'By allowing consumers to vote with their wallets rather than forcing them to buy channels they never watch, the marketplace will responding [sic] by providing more diverse and higher-quality programming than consumers demand.'"

Martin's letter was sent to the Black Leadership Council, the Hispanic Federation, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and the League of Latin American Citizens, among others.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2174261,00.asp





Adobe Launches "Moviestar" Version of Flash Player - HD Television Quality for Web Video
Richard MacManus

Adobe today announced the latest version of its near ubiquitous Web video software, Adobe Flash Player 9. It's codenamed Moviestar, because it includes H.264 standard video support – the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players. In other words, the quality of video has been substantially improved from the previous version of Flash Player 9. Also added to the mix is High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support and "hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback".

Adobe claims that these advancements will extend their leadership position in web video "by enabling the delivery of HD television quality and premium audio content".

The new Flash Player will be available later today as a beta at Adobe Labs - and the final release is slated to be available in the fall (September - November). The last big update to Flash Player was the launch of Flash 9 in June 2006.
Adobe: This is Tipping Point for H.264

I spoke to Mark Randall, Chief Strategist for Dynamic Media at Adobe, about the news. He told me there were three main points to the Moviestar release:

1) The H.264 support means superior video quality; it is also an open standard.

2) High Efficiency Advanced Audio is, says Mark Randall, a "successor to MP3". He said it is a higher quality audio, but at a lower bit rate.

3) It means "hardware acceleration" for Web video.

Randall also said that this represents a tipping point for the H.264 standard, because now Flash Player is supporting it as well Blu-Ray - two big industry players.
Richer Platform for Online Video Producers

As well as the consumer benefits, this also gives online video companies a platform to deliver richer Flash experiences on the desktop, Web and H.264 ready consumer devices. As well as the new Flash Player, H.264 playback will be supported by the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR - a platform to create rich Internet applications to the desktop) and applications developed with Adobe AIR software, including Adobe Media Player in late April.

Currently Adobe Flash Player is said to have 98.7% penetration in the Web, making it the most used media player:

Conclusion

Higher quality online video is great news for consumers and producers alike - especially in a near ubiquitous media player like Flash Player, which is used on YouTube, MySpace and other major platforms. What do you think of this news?
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...estar_h264.php


Adobe’s Tinic Uro blogs about the specs in some detail but doesn’t mention locked video cards or the company’s sweeping DRM plan previously reported in May - Jack.





Google Aims to Make YouTube Profitable With Ads
Miguel Helft

Ever since Google bought YouTube last November, it has avoided cluttering the site and the video clips themselves with ads, for fear of alienating its audience.

The strategy helped cement YouTube’s position as the largest video Web site but didn’t do much to justify YouTube’s $1.65 billion price tag.

Now Google believes it finally has found the formula to cash in on YouTube’s potential as a magnet for online video advertising and keep its audience loyal at the same time.

The company said late Tuesday that after months of testing various video advertising models, it was ready to introduce a new type of video ad, which it said was unobtrusive and kept users in control of what they saw.

The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.

A user can ignore the overlay, which will disappear after about 10 seconds, or close it. But if the user clicks on it, the video they were watching will stop and a video ad will begin playing. Once the ad is over, or if a user clicks on a box to close it, the original video will resume playing from the point where it was stopped.

“What we have come up with is a user-controlled ad format that is engaging,” said Eileen Naughton, Google’s director for media platforms. “We want our users to be able to accept and choose what type of advertising they engage in.”

For now, Google will place the ads only on video clips of its content partners — the more than 1,000 small and large media companies that have licensed their videos to YouTube. By doing so, YouTube will avoid the potential liability of having ads appear on copyrighted clips it is not authorized to display. And it will also prevent ads from playing on clips generated by users whose message may not be to the liking of advertisers.

The revenue from the ads will be split between the media partner and YouTube. Ms. Naughton said Google would charge advertisers $20 for every 1,000 times the ads were displayed. Google said the ads would begin appearing today throughout the site. Ms. Naughton also said advertisers would be able to take aim at specific channels and genres, as well as demographic profiles, geography and hour of the day.

If successful, the video ads could persuade more media companies to license their content to YouTube as a way to make money from it, analysts said.

“Today, YouTube is a sunk cost for Google,” said Darren Aftahi, a securities analyst with ThinkEquity Partners. “If they can couple the proper advertising with the proper content, there is a tremendous opportunity for the company.”

With 51 million users in June, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, YouTube now attracts an audience that is larger than the combined audiences of its three nearest competitors, MySpace, AOL and Yahoo. Its adoption of overlay ads for online video could turn the format into an industry standard, advertising executives said. The video ad market, which is expected to nearly double from last year to $775 million, has been projected to grow to $4.3 billion by 2011, according to eMarketer, a research firm.

But while Google may help popularize the format, it did not invent it. Smaller online video companies, like VideoEgg, a video advertising start-up in San Francisco, have been using similar overlay ads for nearly a year.

Troy Young, VideoEgg’s chief marketing officer, said the goal was to get away from forcing users to watch an ad before showing the clip they wanted to see. Those ads are known as “preroll” and are the most common form of online video advertising so far.

“On the Internet, you have a lot of short-form content, and preroll wasn’t going to work for short content,” Mr. Young said. Mr. Young said that preroll, and “midroll” ads that appear in the middle of a clip, may be appropriate for television shows, movies or other long videos. But overlays have proven effective at making money with short clips, he said. Viewers click on them at a rate roughly five times higher than banner ads, he added.

In tests, YouTube users had clicked on overlays five to 10 times more frequently than on banner ads that already appear on some YouTube pages, Ms. Naughton said. Yahoo has also been testing overlay video ads, creating further momentum for the format.

“We need to be in a place where we have standard overlays and standard measures of engagement across all portals, before the entire preroll industry can shift in any big way,” said Rebecca Paoletti, director of video strategy at Yahoo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/te.../22google.html





TubeStop Also Stops YouTube Ads
Chris Finke

The TubeStop Firefox extension that I wrote in order to stop YouTube videos from auto-playing also has the serendipitous side-effect of removing ads from YouTube videos. Since YouTube is only serving ads through the player on their main site, and not on the embeddable/syndicated player, and TubeStop works by replacing YouTube’s native player with the embeddable version, you won’t see any ads when you’re using TubeStop.

Try it out by first viewing this video without TubeStop: Rock Yo Hips. (I recommend muting your speakers; the content of the video is terrible, but it was the first video I could find with ads.) You’ll see around the 15-second mark an ad pops up over the bottom 15% of the video.

Now install TubeStop, restart Firefox, and view the video again. You’ll notice that while the video still sucks, there are no ads layered on it. I don’t know how long this will be the case, but it works for now.

Update: It looks like Google has removed all video ads for now. I’ll update this post if I come across a video that still has them. Maybe I should rename this post to “TubeStop also stops YouTube ads… FOREVER”.
http://www.chrisfinke.com/2007/08/22...s-youtube-ads/





Paramount Dumps Sony's Blu-Ray Format

Viacom-owned studio opts for Toshiba's "affordable" HD-DVD technology, dumping Sony's Blu-ray discs
Rhy Blakely

Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation have dropped support for Sony’s Blu-ray next generation DVD format in a shock move that will see the two studios exclusively use Toshiba’s rival HD-DVD system.

Paramount, which is owned by Viacom, the media giant, previously released movies in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Significantly, it cited HD-DVD's cheaper costs as a decisive factor behind its decision to back it.

The latest development is a blow for Sony, which has invested heavily in Blu-ray. The battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD is widely being seen as a re-run of that in the 1970s and 1980s between Sony’s Betamax video format and VHS - a cheaper rival - a fight that Sony lost.

The move is also likely to prolong the confusion among consumers, who cannot be sure of buying a next-generation DVD system that does not become defunct after being beaten by an incompatible rival.

Analysts have consistently suggested that confusion over the formats is likely to seriously stymie demand for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD until a clear winner emerges.

Blu-ray still leads HD-DVD in terms of Hollywood support, having won the exclusive backing of five studios: Sony, Walt Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Lions Gate Entertainment and MGM.

By contrast, before today only Universal had opted to back HD DVD exclusively. Paramount and Warner Bros had been making films available on both formats.

However, Sony last month took another hit when it emerged that Europe’s competition watchdog had launched a fresh probe into allegations of possible market rigging in the formats war, thought to centre on exclusivity deals linked to the Blu-ray format.

The European Commission sent requests for information to “several major Hollywood studios” in the second half of June. It is searching for any hints that talks between the studios and the groups behind the formats have given rise to arrangements that could be obstacles to free competition and illegal under European law.

Today’s announcement affects the upcoming DVD release of the blockbuster Shrek the Third and all movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films, as well as movies from DreamWorks Animation, which are distributed exclusively by Paramount Home Entertainment.

Brad Grey, chairman and chief executive of Paramount Pictures, said: “Part of our vision is to aggressively extend our movies beyond the theatre and deliver the quality and features that appeal to our audience.”

He added: “I believe HD DVD is not only the affordable high-quality choice for consumers, but also the smart choice for Paramount.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle2295565.ece





Sony PR Firm Pushes Paramount HD DVD Payoff

Top public relations agency for Sony's Blu-ray interests tips reporters to blog item after Paramount backs rival HD DVD.
Swanni

Paramount announced today that it's dropping Blu-ray to back HD DVD exclusively in the high-def disc format war.

Soon after the announcement, GCI Group, a Los Angeles-based public relations firm, began calling reporters (including this one) to tell them that a Hollywood news blog was reporting that HD DVD supporters gave Paramount $100 million in "promotional considerations" to dump Blu-ray.

GCI Group represents Sony, the leading supporter of the Blu-ray format, and jointly issues press releases on its behalf on Blu-ray issues.

The blog, "Deadline Hollywood Daily," is written by Nikki Finke of the LA Weekly. Finke also wrote that DreamWorks Animation, which today said it would also support HD DVD exclusively, got $50 million in "promotional considerations."

Finke did not name her sources, say how many they were or even characterize them as coming from a specific company or industry.

Her blog item, which was posted shortly after today's Paramount announcement, also did not elaborate on the "promotional considerations."

It did quote the "sources" as saying the alleged payoff was "really out of desperation" by HD DVD supporters and "a cash grab" by the studios (Paramount and DreamWorks.) Toshiba and Microsoft are the leading supporters of the HD DVD format.

In response to the blog item, the web site Gizmodo asked Paramount for a response and here it is:

"The reason we made this decision is simple. After a year of fully experiencing and exploring both formats, we decided to exclusively support HD DVD because of the quality, value and potential the format offers. Beyond that, whenever we conduct co-marketing, production deals or other agreements, we never discuss business terms."
http://www.tvpredictions.com/bluraypay082007.htm





Malaysia Honors DVD-Sniffing Dogs as They End 6-Month Assignment
AP

Malaysia gave a hero's send-off Monday to Lucky and Flo, honoring the two DVD-sniffing dogs with medals as they ended a six-month assignment that netted 1.6 million illegal movie discs.

The two black Labradors looked puzzled when a multitude of press photographers' flash bulbs went off as Malaysia's deputy trade minister S. Veerasingham placed medals around their necks.

"What they have helped us achieve in such a short time is remarkable," said Veerasingham. "Malaysia is committed to wiping out piracy and pirates. We will go after them very fast."

The world's first dogs trained to identify optical discs by the scent of their chemicals, Lucky and Flo were loaned to the Malaysian government in March by the Motion Picture Association, a U.S.-based watchdog.

During that stint - dubbed Operation Double Trouble - they helped unearth 1.6 million DVDs and other optical discs, three DVD replicating machines and 97 compact disc burners, worth $6 million. Twenty-six people were arrested during the raids.

The operations were so successful that Malaysian movie pirates were reported to have placed a bounty of $29,000 on the dogs, prompting them to be kept under close guard.

The two dogs will leave on Aug. 23 for New York, where they will take part in shows and also help in raids on movie pirates.

The dogs cannot distinguish between pirated and legal discs, but that can be easily done by enforcement officers once the
Advertisement

dogs had unearthed the caches. In at least one instance, the dogs uncovered a secret room behind a false wall.

The domestic trade ministry will set up a canine unit later this year to unearth pirated DVDs. Two new dogs will be trained in Ireland by the same trainer who taught Lucky and Flo, said Veerasingham.

According to the MPA, its member studios in the U.S. lost $6.1 billion to worldwide piracy in 2005, of which the Asia-Pacific region accounted for $1.2 billion and the United States for $1.3 billion.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_6670285





Peel Police Smash Illegal DVD Ring, Net 75,000 Pirated Films
CBC News

Ontario police seized 75,000 illegal copies of some of this summer's biggest blockbusters and rounded up at least a dozen suspects Sunday, capping off an eight-month sting operation that investigators say ended in one of the largest anti-piracy busts in Canadian history.

On Monday, officers from the Peel region said they may now charge up to 21 people for allegedly running the illegal DVD market, which hawked still-in-theatre titles such as the Michael Moore documentary Sicko and The Simpsons Movie for as little as $4 a disc.

The pirated films were sold by merchants operating out of a Mississauga flea market at Mavis Rd., as well as at least one other Mississauga market, police said.

"As far as the sheer numbers involved, with the number of entries and the amount of arrests, the volume of DVDs seized, the money, the lab equipment — it's pretty significant," Peel police Det. John Mans said of the bust.

CBC News learned about the piracy investigation and checked in on the black market operation a few weeks ago using hidden cameras. The undercover report found that the operation was so efficient that $4 copies of The Simpsons Movie had already appeared on store shelves just 14 hours after the film began premiering in Canadian movie theatres.

Reproducing $21 million in movies a year

Investigators said business was brisk at the illegal markets. Even as officers were slapping cuffs on suspects, loyal customers were asking when the stores would reopen, the lead investigator told CBC News.

"You've got all walks of life coming in there — old, young, men in wheelchairs coming up asking for a television series they want and giving their names and phone numbers," Det. Mans said. "It's amazing. People are just completely oblivious to the fact that it's entirely illegal."

In all, Peel investigators believe the piracy ring was reproducing $21 million in Hollywood movies a year.

Canada, in particular, is a hotbed for movie piracy, with the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association saying that up to 25 per cent of all pirated films originate from illegal recordings done in Canadian theatres.

In an act of protest against what it feels are Canada's lax anti-piracy laws, Warner Bros. recently threatened to delay its movie premieres and stop handing out promotional copies in Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/sto.../dvd-bust.html





Legal Fights Uncovered in Docu on Skin's Flynt
Gregg Kilday

Larry Flynt is no stranger to the big screen. Milos Forman's 1996 "The People vs. Larry Flynt," with Woody Harrelson playing the quarrelsome pornographer, chronicled Flynt's colorful run-ins with the law as he challenged establishment moralists. Flynt is no stranger to the small screen, either: Most recently, he has popped up decrying Washington hypocrisy as Sen. David Vitter, R-La., admitted to dealings with a D.C. escort service after receiving a phone call from an editor with Flynt's Hustler magazine.

Now, Flynt also is the subject of a new documentary, "Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone," which will screen as part of the International Documentary Assn.'s DocuWeek, which gets under way today and runs through Thursday at the ArcLight Hollywood and the Landmark Theatre in Los Angeles.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Joan Brooker-Marks, a former TV writer who moved on to teach film at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Even though Flynt has gotten plenty of media attention, she was convinced that most of the previous accounts of his life "were more biographical. I wanted to touch on the seminal events in his life but also wanted to really, really concentrate on his court battles on behalf of the First Amendment. Personally, I think the First Amendment is unequivocal, and Larry's efforts have been significant -- particularly for writers and satirists, even though they have been minimized because he is a pornographer."

Her husband Walter Marks, who happened to be an old acquaintance of Flynt's, introduced her to her subject, who gave her carte blanche, opening up his own extensive archives. With Marks serving as producer, Brooker-Marks launched the project under her own Midtownfilms banner.

While the film, which was privately financed at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars, began shooting in October 2005, Brooker-Marks has been adding bits of footage right up until locking it for its DocuWeek premiere -- for example, adding Flynt's reaction to the recent death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, whose libel suit against Flynt led to a Supreme Court victory for the publisher in the 1980s.

As a piece of advocacy filmmaking, "Left Alone" could almost have jumped from the pages of Hustler itself. It includes interspersed footage of a Hustler photo shoot -- albeit a relatively discreet one -- as well as political-minded cartoons from the magazine. It jumps from topic to topic: Flynt's first court case in Cincinnati, where he was convicted of pandering in 1977; his refusal to surrender sources for the tapes revealing the FBI sting operation against carmaker John DeLorean in the '80s; and his exposes of prominent Republicans during the Clinton impeachment trail in the '90s.

The docu does tend to lionize Flynt at points. It reports, for example, how Flynt filed suit against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld so that his reporters could accompany troops into battle in Afghanistan. Although a U.S. district judge denied Flynt's request for a preliminary injunction and the Supreme Court subsequently refused to hear the case on appeal, the docu argues that the Defense Department allowed embedded journalists to accompany the military into Iraq as a result of Flynt's legal efforts.
The film takes its title from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis' contention that the Fourth Amendment's right to privacy includes "the right to be left alone" -- a sentiment that Flynt echoes. In the buttoned-down world of constitutional law, Flynt emerges as a most unlikely champion of free speech because, as Brooker-Marks says, "In the beginning, he just wanted to be around pretty girls and publish a magazine."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...4eee7a3993d167





My China girl

Mattel Sues Porn Website Over Use of Barbie Name

Mattel Inc. sued a small company on Tuesday for using the toymaker's famed "Barbie" trademark as part of the name for a pornographic Web site it owned.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, said the Web site www.chinabarbie.com had used the Barbie trademark to capture the positive image Mattel had created through its "Barbie" products.

The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, said the company, Global China Networks LLC, was based in Florida with a postal address in New York and had sold memberships to the site to customers around the world.

Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler in 1959 created the Barbie doll after noticing her daughter preferred playing with paper cut-outs of adult female fashion dolls, the lawsuit said.

American girls aged between 3 and 11 own an average of eight Barbie dolls each, the lawsuit said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddly...39574720070822





Got wood?

Australian Teenager Cracks $84-Million Internet Porn Filter in 30 Minutes

Tom Wood, a Year 10 student, probably 15 - 16 years old has cracked the federal government's $84-million internet porn filter in just 30 minutes. He can deactivate the filter in several clicks in such a way that the software's icon is not deleted which will make his parents believe the filter is still working. Tom says it is a matter of time before some computer-savvy kid puts the bypass on the Internet for others to use. "It's a horrible waste of money," he said. "They could get a much better filter for a few million dollars made here rather than paying overseas companies for an ineffective one."

Australian communications Minister Helen Coonan said the government had anticipated kids would find their ways around the NetFilter. Yes Minister but 30 minutes for a teenager to crack a 84 million dollar filter is simply ridiculous.
http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/...30_minutes.php





Patent Ruling May Help Firms' Defense in Suits
Peter Lattman

In a significant win for companies accused of patent infringement, a federal appeals court has essentially raised the bar for proving willful infringement, a finding that allows a judge to triple a damage award.

By changing the standard to prove willful patent infringement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a specialized patent-appeals court, has blunted a weapon that patent holders use against companies they accuse of patent infringement. In such cases, companies faced with the uncertainty of a jury finding of willful infringement often choose to settle rather than take a case to trial.

"The threat of willful infringement is always in the background when a patentee and defendant are thinking about negotiating a license or settlement," said Jeffrey D. Sullivan, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP in New York, who isn't involved in the case. "A potential finding of willful infringement raises the stakes in any patent litigation."

The Federal Circuit court ruling overturned a 24-year-old legal precedent. Proof of willful patent infringement will now require "at least a showing of objective recklessness" on the part of an alleged infringer, wrote Judge Haldane Robert Mayer for the unanimous court. The case was closely watched: The Federal Circuit received nearly two dozen "friend-of-the-court" briefs from parties weighing in on the issue.

The seven-year-old case, which hasn't gone to trial, pits an individual inventor and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology against Seagate Technology. Seagate brought the matter before the Federal Circuit to sort out a discovery dispute that took place at the trial court. A lawyer for the plaintiffs declined to comment on whether her clients will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Companies defending themselves against lawsuits have long complained that the legal standard for finding willful patent infringement led to unpredictable rulings. The old criteria placed an "affirmative duty of due care" on anyone who learned that they might be infringing a patent.

Findings of willful infringement have been common in patent cases. In perhaps the most notable example, in 2003 a federal judge enhanced the damages award against Research In Motion Ltd. after a finding that RIM had willfully infringed patents held by NTP Inc.

The ruling is the latest in a string of decisions that have favored companies defending themselves from patent-infringement lawsuits. In May 2006, the Supreme Court gave trial-court judges more discretion in deciding whether to issue an injunction against a patent infringer, rather than automatically issuing one upon a finding of infringement. In April, the Supreme Court handed down a patent decision making it easier for trial-court judges to call an invention "obvious" and therefore ineligible for a patent.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118774466005504815.html





Stretching Crystals Promises Flexible Colour Displays
Belle Dumé

The first full-colour display made from a single material could turn the market for flat and flexible displays on its head. Commercial screens based on the technology could be available on the high street in as little as two years, says the Canadian team who built the device.

The pixels in the device are made from photonic crystals similar in structure to the natural gemstone opal. Each crystal is made from silica microspheres in a repeating 3D pattern which blocks certain wavelengths of light, or colours, while reflecting others. Altering the colour of the pixel is simply a matter of changing the spacing between the microspheres, which is achieved by stretching the material.

The beauty of the device is that it can produce the whole spectrum of colours, even ultraviolet and infrared light, using only incident light. As a result, the expensive colour filters used in every other colour display on the market today, are no longer needed. And because the displays use only reflected ambient light, no power is wasted on backlighting, as in today's mobile phones, for example.
'Unprecedented tuning'

"They can be viewed just as well in bright sunlight as in indoor light," team member André Arsenault of the University of Toronto told New Scientist.

The researchers stretch the crystals by bonding them to an electroactive polymer that expands when a voltage is applied to it, causing a change in the crystal structure. "By gradually increasing the voltage, we can span the whole visible spectrum, and even the UV and IR ranges. Such full-colour tuning is unprecedented," says Arsenault, who has co-founded a start-up company called Opalux to commercialise the technology.

The crystals could be used to make full-colour flexible electronic paper, small displays, and large roadside billboards, say the researchers. But this will involve scaling up the process, a task that has proven challenging for other display technologies.

"This is certainly important work," says photonic physicist Yadong Ying of the University of California, Riverside, US. "Although the principle of tuning the photonic property by changing the lattice spacing is widely known, this system represents the first practical photonic-crystal-based display that has fully electrically tuneable colours."
http://technology.newscientist.com/a...ine-news_rss20





Gender Colours Your Choice of Hues: Study
CBC News

A study released today reveals that the long-held stereotypes about men's and women's favourite colours have some scientific basis.

A study in the Aug. 21 issue of Current Biology reports some of the first conclusive evidence of a gender divide over favourite colours. Indeed, the researchers found that more women than men really do prefer pink — or at least a redder shade of blue.

"Although we expected to find sex differences, we were surprised at how robust they were, given the simplicity of our test," said Anya Hurlbert of Newcastle University.

The test asked young men and women to choose, as quickly as possible, their preferred colour from each of a series of paired, coloured rectangles. Results showed blue is a universal favourite, but that tastes still differ between the sexes.

"Females have a preference for the red end of the red-green axis, and this shifts their colour preference slightly away from blue towards red, which tends to make pinks and lilacs the most preferred colours in comparison with others," Hurlbert said.

The researchers found the divide predictable enough that they can now usually tell the sex of a participant based on their favourite-colour choices.

To clarify whether the results were more cultural than biological, the researchers tested a small group of Chinese people against the other 171 British Caucasian participants. The results were similar, strengthening the idea that the sex differences might be biological.

Hurlbert theorized the female preference for red could date from humans' hunter-gatherer days when women — the primary gatherers — would have benefited from an ability to key in on ripe, red fruits.

"Evolution may have driven females to prefer reddish colours — reddish fruits, healthy, reddish faces," Hurlbert said. "Culture may exploit and compound this natural female preference."

Hurlbert also offered ideas as to the universal preference for blue, but said it's mostly speculation.

"I would favour evolutionary arguments again here," she said. "Going back to our savannah days, we would have a natural preference for a clear blue sky, because it signalled good weather. Clear blue also signals a good water source."

The researchers plan to test infants as well to gain further insight into colour preferences.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...ors070821.html





Words Unspoken Are Rendered on War’s Faces
Holland Cotter

One of the more shocking photographs to emerge from the current Iraq war was taken last year in a rural farm town in the American Midwest. It’s a studio portrait by the New York photographer Nina Berman of a young Illinois couple on their wedding day.

The bride, Renee Kline, 21, is dressed in a traditional white gown and holds a bouquet of scarlet flowers. The groom, Ty Ziegel, 24, a former Marine sergeant, wears his dress uniform, decorated with combat medals, including a Purple Heart. Her expression is unsmiling, maybe grave. His, as he looks toward her, is hard to read: his dead-white face is all but featureless, with no nose and no chin, as blank as a pullover mask.

Two years earlier, while in Iraq as a Marine Corps reservist, Mr. Ziegel had been trapped in a burning truck after a suicide bomber’s attack. The heat melted the flesh from his face. At Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas he underwent 19 rounds of surgery. His shattered skull was replaced by a plastic dome, and a face was constructed more or less from scratch with salvaged tissue, holes left where his ears and nose had been.

Ms. Berman took this picture, which is in the solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery, on assignment for People magazine. It was meant to accompany an article that documented Mr. Ziegel’s recovery, culminating in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart. But the published portrait was a convivial shot of the whole wedding party. Maybe the image of the couple alone was judged to be too stark, the emotional interchange too ambiguous. Maybe they looked, separately and together, too alone.

“Marine Wedding,” the portrait’s title, was not Ms. Berman’s first encounter with wounded Iraq war veterans. She photographed several others beginning in 2003, and 20 of her portraits were published as a book, “Purple Hearts: Back From Iraq” (Trolley Books, 2004), with an introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times. These pictures, accompanied by printed interviews with the sitters, have been traveling the country, and 10 are now at Bekman.

None are as startling as “Marine Wedding,” even when the disability recorded is more extensive. Former Spc. Luis Calderon, 22, of Puerto Rico, had his spinal cord severed when a concrete wall he was ordered to pull down — it was painted with a mural of Saddam Hussein — fell on him. He is now a quadriplegic, though this is not immediately evident from his portrait. Nor can we see from the photograph of Spc. Sam Ross, 20, of Pennsylvania, that he lost a leg in a bomb blast, which also caused permanent brain damage.

Almost all the veterans in Ms. Berman’s pictures look isolated, even if someone else is present. And a sense of loneliness comes through in their brief interviews. Mr. Ross, separated from his family, lives by himself in a trailer. Mr. Calderon, who waited months for veterans’ benefits, says he feels abandoned by the military; because he was not wounded in combat, he has not been awarded a Purple Heart.

Spc. Robert Acosta, 20, a Californian who lost a hand in a grenade attack, says he is psychologically unable to resume his former social life: “I don’t like dealing with the questions. Like, ‘Was it hot?’ ‘Did you shoot anybody?’ They want me to glorify the war and say it was so cool.”

Mr. Acosta’s interview has the only overt anti-war sentiment in the Bekman show, and there are few words of bitterness or recrimination. Mr. Ross calls combat in Iraq the best time of his life. Randall Clunen of Ohio remembers the excitement of search missions in Iraqi homes as a peak experience. Sgt. Joseph Mosner, at 35 the oldest in this group, was 19 when he enlisted. “There was no good jobs,” he said, “so I figured this would have been a good thing.” He still thinks so, despite his severe facial scarring from a bomb explosion.

Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, left brain-damaged and blind by an artillery attack, once had plans for medical school. but says: “I don’t have any regrets. I had some fun over there. I don’t want to talk about the military anymore.” He claims, as do others, that he has no political opinions.

Ms. Berman adds no direct editorial comment to the presentation. She has said in interviews that she started photographing disabled veterans soon after the war began mainly because she didn’t see anyone else doing so. In what may be the most intensively photographed war in history, the visual documentation has been selective. The fate of the injured veterans was not a public issue until news reports about substandard treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

This background provides the context for Ms. Berman’s photographs, which are themselves tip-of-the-iceberg images. No matter what the viewer’s political position, the images add up to a complex and desolating anti-war statement. Mr. Acosta makes that statement outright: “Yeah, I got a Purple Heart. I don’t care. I don’t need anything to prove I was there. I know I was there. I got a constant reminder. I mean like all the reasons we went to war, it just seems like they’re not legit enough for people to lose their lives for and for me to lose my hand and use of my legs and for my buddies to lose their limbs.”

And “Marine Wedding” speaks, as powerfully as a picture can, for itself.

“Nina Berman: Purple Hearts” continues through Aug. 30 at Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street, between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street; (212) 219-0166, jenbekman.com.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/ar...gn/22berm.html





Lines Can be Crossed as Blog Power Surges
Nellie Andreeva

Call it "the 'Jericho' effect." After gathering strength and flexing their muscles for the past several years, TV bloggers came into their own as a force to be reckoned with this summer when their campaign to save CBS' canceled postapocalyptic drama "Jericho" became a triumphant success.

Blogs, with their feedback features that foster dialogue among users, have become the perfect forum for fans to share their passion about their favorite TV shows.

And with the bloggers' power growing, the networks and studios increasingly are catering to them, giving them access to their stars and producers. Web writers have become a growing presence at industry events like the Television Critics Assn.'s press tours. To promote its lineup, the Sci Fi Channel last month hosted an exclusive press event for bloggers and webmasters who went behind the scenes of the channel's series.

Some bloggers have become as powerful as the leading TV critics in shaping the online community's opinions of new and exciting series. But that growing influence also has brought out a dark side.

Because of the virtually infinite number of TV blogs out there, the pressure to stand out and get traffic is mounting, prompting some bloggers to rush to post unconfirmed and unsourced items just to be the first out there, beating mainstream reporters who have to meet rigorous confirmation standards before going with a story. A blogger, for instance, ran a big "exclusive" pronouncing Geena Davis the front-runner to succeed departed Mandy Patinkin on CBS' "Criminal Minds" after the actress had already passed on the role.

Two weekends ago, along with other reporters, I was waiting to see if Joe Mantegna's deal to become the new lead on "Minds" would go through. That Sunday, the network's PR department sent an e-mail out that the show's executive producer/showrunner Ed Bernero had posted an announcement of Mantegna's casting on the "Minds" fan blog. I wrote a story referring to the posting. The following day, I got an exasperated cell phone call at 6 a.m. from Jill Davidson, the woman behind the Criminal Minds Fanatic blog that hosted the posting. It was garnered by a slew of angry midnight voice messages on my and other Hollywood Reporter editors' office phones and more harassing phone calls to our offices Monday morning. All because Davidson felt she didn't get enough credit.

With online fan armies growing stronger and more powerful as the "Jericho" victory proved, some of them seem to be getting more aggressive, too. To play off Davidson's site's name -- when is it a fan, and when does it become a fanatic?

A day after the Mantegna piece ran, I had written a story about HBO's cancellation of "John From Cincinnati." Another angry response from an online fan of the show, this time an e-mail scolding me for using "negative context" in the story.

OK, it's a story about the cancellation of a show that has to address the potential reasons for the demise -- it has got to have some "negative context."

As trade journalists covering television, do we have to fear criticizing shows because their fans can get offended and, being Web-savvy, can track us down and come after us?

Investigative reporters often have been targeted for exposing fraud, uncovering cover-ups and shedding light on organized crime as evidenced by the recent assassination of veteran Oakland reporter Chauncey Bailey. But entertainment trade reporters worrying for their safety?! Even with hard-hitting stories, the damages we inflict are mostly in the form of bruised Hollywood egos.

Yes, the love of its fans is a show's biggest asset, and the Internet has made it easier for that fan base to stay close together and grow. But it also has made the small step from love to obsession a hell of a lot easier.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...b275f6e6abf86e





Chinese Blog Providers ‘Encouraged' to Register Users with their Real Names
Anita Chang

Blog service providers in China are “encouraged” to register users with their real names and contact information, according to a new government document that tones down an earlier proposal banning anonymous online blogging.

At least 10 major Chinese blog service providers have agreed to sign the “self-discipline pledge” issued by the Internet Society of China, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

Online bulletin boards and blogs are the only forum for most Chinese to express opinions before a large audience in a society where all media are state-controlled.

China has the world's second-biggest population of Internet users after the United States, with 137 million people online. It also has 30 million registered bloggers, and more than 100 million Chinese Internet users visit blogs regularly, according to the ISC. The group is under the Ministry of Information Industry.

The guidelines, issued Tuesday and effective immediately, “encouraged” real-name registration of users, according to a copy posted on the Internet group's Web site.

The information — to be filed with the companies, not posted online — should include the user's name, address, contact numbers and e-mail address, it said.

Measures listed in the document were guidelines only and blog service providers were not required to comply, said an official at the Internet group, surnamed Zhu.

It was not clear whether the guideline calling for real-name registration covered bloggers only or whether it extended to people who post comments. Zhu refused to provide details.

The Chinese government had wanted to require real-name registration, but the proposal was met by “fierce opposition,” Xinhua said.

“Conditions are not yet mature for implementing real-name registration as we lack reliable technology for privacy protection and identity verification,” Huang Chengqing, secretary general of the ISC, was quoted as saying.

But he said service providers were still responsible for the content of the blogs. Chinese leaders often try to block online material deemed pornographic or a threat to communist rule.

“Blog service providers who allow the use of pseudonyms may be more attractive to bloggers, but they will be punished by the government if they fail to screen illegal information,” Huang was quoted as saying.

The Xinhua report did not provide additional details of banned information, but other measures called for in the pledge include not spreading pornography and not speaking ill of other nationalities, races, religions and cultural customs. Bloggers also should not spread rumors or libelous information, it said.

“Blog providers should monitor and manage comments ... and delete illegal and bad information in a timely manner,” the document said.

Blog service providers such as People's Daily online, Sohu.com, Sina.com.cn and cn.msn.com have said they would abide by the pledge, Xinhua reported.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...echnology/home





BuynLarge - Hilarious Web Attack on Excesses of Capitalism by.. Disney?

The BuynLarge Corporation's website illustrates a future where one company effectively controls everything on the planet - from industry and media to the world clock, government, and, even North on the compass. If it want's to stop paying tax, it can. It's opponants such as anarchists and anti-consumer groups, are in fact 'customers we haven't reached yet'. To top it all the site is littered with cringable stock photography and a web-standards unfriendly Flash interface.

And the source of this smart (and wet myself funny) illustration of the nightmare Stalinist totalitarian future for unchecked global capitalism? Adbusters, perhaps? Greenpeace or Armando Iannucci or Chris Morris?

It's actually Disney subsidiary PIxar and the new promotion site for 2008's Wall-E. While most of us in the UK are waiting to get to see Rataouille (which I saw at Edinburgh this week and is reportedly topping the audience award already - review and Edinburgh write up soon!) publicity for the final film of the original Stanton-Lasseter- slate is heating up. The film, conceived over a legnedary lunch shortly before the release of Toy Story, where A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo were also formed, looks like Pixar's first attempt at a love story, through the heart of an R2D2 like robot. Says Disney's head of animation, John Lasster:

WALL-E is the story of the last little robot on Earth. He is a robot that his programming was to help clean up. You see, it's set way in the future. Through consumerism, rampant, unchecked consumerism, the Earth was covered with trash. And to clean up, everyone had to leave Earth and set in place millions of these little robots that went around to clean up the trash and make Earth habitable again.

Well, the cleanup program failed with the exception of this one little robot and he's left on Earth doing his duty all alone. But it's not a story about science fiction. It's a love story, because, you see, WALL-E falls in love with [Eve], a robot from a probe that comes down to check on Earth, and she's left there to check on and see how things are going and he absolutely falls in love with her

It sounds promising - according to the Wikipedia entry, director Andrew Stanton developed WALL-E before Toy Story was made:[3]. After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt, "[W]e had really achieved the physics of believing you were really under water, so I said 'Hey, let’s do that with air.' I said, 'Let’s do that with air. Let’s fix our lenses, let’s get the depth of field looking exactly how anthropomorphic lenses work and do all these tricks that make us have the same kind of dimensionality that we got on Nemo with an object out in the air and on the ground.'"[3] The design of WALL-E and Eve came about by Stanton telling his designers, "See it as an appliance first, and then read character into it."[3] There is no traditional dialogue in the film; Stanton joked, "I’m basically making R2-D2: The Movie", in reference to voice artist/sound designer Ben Burtt's work on Star Wars. To create dialogue, Burtt took various mechanical sounds, and combined them to resemble dialogue.[4] Producer Jim Morris added that the film was animated so that it would feel "as if there really was a cameraman."
http://www.netribution.co.uk/2/content/view/1256/182/





No CDN Lawsuits Aginst Individuals for File Sharing?
Howard Knopf

There’s a Slyck interview from August 17, 2007 with David Basskin, spokesperson these days for the CPCC - the collector of private copying levies in Canada.

Leaving aside lots of other issues that merit comment, one answer was quite strange.

Slyck.com: Many people have argued for some time that sending lawsuits to people on P2P networks is a bad idea. Some are arguing that, instead of sending lawsuits, it's better to put a levy on ISPs to counteract what the industry considers losses over the internet. Is this something that the CPCC has considered? What are your thoughts on this idea?

David: No lawsuits have been brought in Canada against individuals with respect to unauthorized file "sharing".
...
Excuse me, but what about BMG v. Doe, in which the big record companies sued 29 John and Jane Doe Canadian defendants for file sharing? The result, as we all know, is that BMG et al failed to get disclosure of the names of the actual 29 individuals who were alleged to be illegally sharing files.

If the law suits didn’t actually proceed any further, it wasn’t for lack of effort. The record companies - backed by CRIA - lost in both the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. CRIA went through three prominent law firms to get this result. There was no lack of effort to sue individuals here.

See my comment on these cases here.

These major record companies - who tried to sue 29 individuals in Canada - happen to be major stakeholders in the private copying levy scheme, through one of the collectives that comprise the CPCC. CRIA was probably the prime mover for the levy scheme in the first place.

I should remind readers that I acted against the record companies in the BMG case and I have long acted against CPCC concerning the private copying levies. http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/...duals-for.html





Coupon Hacker Faces DMCA Lawsuit
David Kravets

John Stottlemire is the DVD Jon of coupon-clipping, and it's getting him in trouble.

The California man is on the working end of a federal copyright lawsuit after posting code and instructions that allow shoppers to circumvent copy protection on downloadable, printable coupons -- the type used by General Foods, Colgate, Disney and others to sell everything from soap to breakfast cereal.

The coupons are distributed by Mountain View, California-based Coupons Inc. through ad banners, e-mail and its website, coupons.com. To use them, consumers must install Coupons Inc.'s proprietary software. The software assigns each user's computer a unique identifier, which the company uses to track and control the consumer's coupon-printing practices, usually limiting each user to two coupons per product. Each printed coupon has its own unique serial code.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, last month, Coupons Inc. accuses Stottlemire of creating and giving away a program that erases the unique identifier, allowing consumers to repeatedly download and print as many copies of a particular coupon as they want.

The lawsuit also charges Stottlemire with posting tutorials on bargain-swapping sites DealIdeal.com and thecouponqueen.net on how to manually defeat the print limit, which the complaint alleges "would allow users of that software to print an unlimited number of coupons from the coupons.com website."

Stottlemire, 42, of Fremont, California, insists there was no encryption or hacking involved, and therefore he did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "I honestly think there are big problems when you are not allowed to delete files off of your computer," says Stottlemire.

To be sure, Stottlemire's work differs from the generic online copyright battles involving movies, music or even literature: He's accused of liberating something that is already free. But Coupons Inc. argues the coupon hack is no different from cracks like "DVD Jon" Johansen's program DeCSS.

Scores of companies contract with Coupons Inc. to release a limited number of coupons for each product. If somebody cracks the code and downloads hundreds or thousands of them, it's consumers who lose, according to CEO Jeff Weitzman.

"We're protecting copyrighted information that is free to consumers already," says Weitzman. "We're trying to make sure everybody can get their fair share."

Ironically, Stottlemire says his motive was to get a job at Coupons Inc. "My goal was to show Jeff my capabilities and to ask him for employment," he says. But motives aside, Stottlemire says the case now raises bigger issues: How can a computer owner be prohibited from deleting files from his own computer?

"All I did was erase files or registry keys," he says. "Nothing was hacked. Nothing was decoded that was any way, shape or form in the way the DMCA was written."

Legal experts aren't so sure.

"I think it's a pretty broad statute," says Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. "It may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power."

Jim Gibson, a University of Virginia School of Law visiting scholar who teaches copyright law, suggests Stottlemire might be swimming in legally murky waters at best.

"He might be in trouble for providing technology that is designed for essentially hacking around copyright protection," Gibson says. "Whether as a matter of public policy there should be a claim against him is a completely different story."

Stottlemire says he's being sued because Coupons Inc. "does not have the technology in place that would limit the number of times that a person could print a coupon."

The 500 brands Coupons Inc. represents also suffer from fraud the old-fashioned way. They fall victim to photocopying of their coupons. Weitzman says the company shuts off coupon-printing access to violators if photocopied coupons with the same serial numbers show up at markets.

That hurts the companies' bottom line, Weitzman says.

"We monitor those things very carefully," he says. "If we do see duplicates coming through, we have ways from keeping people from printing coupons in the future."

The company wants Stottlemire to turn over the names of people he knows downloaded his software, and is seeking damages from the coder that could amount to hundreds of thousands -- or even millions -- of dollars. And it's not offering him 10 percent off.
http://www.wired.com/politics/online...007/08/coupons





Genius Phone Hacker Dead at 58
UPI

A blind genius, who insisted on being 5 years old forever, has died in Minneapolis. He was 58.

Joe Engressia, who legally changed his name to Joybubbles in 1991, played a pivotal role in the 1970s subculture of "phone phreaks" after discovering at a young age that he could make free phone calls by whistling tones, The New York Times reported Monday.

The precursors of today's computer hackers, the reign of phone phreaks ended when digitalization replaced the tone-based system.

Born blind, Joybubbles had an I.Q. of 172.

At one point during his childhood his obsession prompted his parents to go without telephone service for five years.

Joybubbles attended the University of South Florida but left after being caught making phone calls for friends at $1 a call.

He did menial work for most of his life before moving to Minnesota in 1982 and living on Social Security disability.

The cause of his death on Aug. 8 has not been determined.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_New...ad_at_58/4813/





Seagate to Offer Solid-State Drives in 2008

SSDs offer advantages over disk-based drives: they're lighter, consume less power
Sumner Lemon

Seagate Technology LLC plans to add solid-state drives based on flash memory chips to its lineup of storage products sometime in 2008, the company said Thursday.

Seagate will introduce the drives across a range of products including desktop and notebook PCs, offering various storage capacities, said Woody Monroy, a Seagate spokesman. Monroy confirmed comments made by the company in published reports earlier in the day.

"We have solid-state drives on every road map that we have," Bill Watkins, the company's CEO, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

SSDs, as solid-state drives are also known, use flash memory instead of magnetic disks to store information. Flash is a type of non-volatile memory, which means the chips retain stored information when power is off. Other memory types, such as DRAM, lose data when the power goes off.

SSDs offer a couple advantages over disk-based drives: they're lighter, consume less power, and more rugged, making them ideal for laptops and mobile devices. They are also more expensive, but the price gap is narrowing as flash memory becomes increasingly cheaper.

Seagate already makes hybrid drives, which combine flash memory with magnetic disks. Its Momentus 5400 PSD hybrid drive stores the most commonly accessed data on flash memory instead of on disks, which improves read time and speeds up the process of booting a computer, the company said.

The drives are intended to be used in laptops and are available in capacities up to 160GB, according to Seagate's Web site.

Seagate will use the new flash drives to augment its product lineup for certain applications, but predicts far greater demand for its hybrid, or "flash-embedded," drives. "We have a pretty compelling product in hybrid drives; that's where we see a large part of the storage market going in the future, much bigger than SSD," Monroy said.

In January, Seagate joined an industry alliance of storage vendors promoting hybrid drive technology, also including Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. That capability also complements a feature of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista OS, designed to remove the delay often encountered while a computer searches for and retrieves files from its hard drive. Intel Corp. also uses a similar approach to speed the performance of its Centrino Duo notebook platform.

As the high cost of flash and hybrid drives drops closer to traditional hard drives, consumers will soon fuel increased demand for the superior performance of solid state, analysts said. In June, iSuppli Corp. forecasted that by the end of 2009, 12% of notebooks would include SSDs, and 35% of notebooks would use hybrid hard drives.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...&intsrc=kc_top





Chinese Seek to Buy a U.S. Maker of Disk Drives
John Markoff

A Chinese technology company has expressed interest in buying a maker of computer disk drives in the United States, raising concerns among American government officials about the risks to national security in transferring high technology to China.

The overture, which was disclosed by the chief executive of one of the two remaining drive makers in the United States, William D. Watkins of Seagate Technology, has resurrected the issues of economic competitiveness and national security raised three years ago when Lenovo, a Chinese computer maker, bought I.B.M.’s personal computer business.

Tensions have been increasing lately between the countries over China’s ambitions in developing its military abilities and advanced technologies for industrial and consumer uses.

Although disk drives do not fall under a list of export-controlled technologies, the attempted purchase of an American disk drive company would require a security review by the federal government, according to several government officials.

In recent years, modern disk drives, used to store vast quantities of digital information securely, have become complex computing systems, complete with hundreds of thousands of lines of software that are used to ensure the integrity of data and to offer data encryption.

That could raise the prospect of secret tampering with hardware or software to make it possible to pilfer information via computer networks, intelligence officials have warned.

Seagate has recently begun selling drives with hardware encryption abilities.

Mr. Watkins did not identify the Chinese company. But he said that the possibility of an acquisition had sent alarm bells ringing at some government agencies.

“The U.S. government is freaking out,” Mr. Watkins said during an interview on Thursday.

Reached Friday night, Treasury officials declined to comment on possible Chinese overtures for an American maker.

While Mr. Watkins said that Seagate, which is the largest drive maker in the United States, was not for sale, he also said that if a high enough premium was offered to shareholders it would be difficult to stop.

Seagate’s shares rose 1.05 percent Friday to close at $24.96 and were up about 4 percent for the week after news that it might enter the flash memory market. There does not appear to have been any significant increase in trading of Seagate options.

With a booming economy and $1.33 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves, Chinese companies are in a position to acquire American companies, as Japanese and West European companies were several decades ago. While those earlier acquisitions were often opposed out of fears that they would damage American economic competitiveness, the acquisition of American companies by Chinese companies is regarded with more suspicion, particularly in the high-tech sector.

Since the Lenovo sale, the government has become increasingly concerned about technology security, according to members of federal advisory committees.

“Seagate would be extremely sensitive,” said an industry executive who participates in classified government advisory groups. “I do not think anyone in the U.S. wants the Chinese to have access to the controller chips for a disk drive. One never knows what the Chinese could do to instrument the drive.”

The transfer of advanced disk drive manufacturing technology would give the Chinese a major leg up in competing in information technologies. China, however, still lags in basic manufacturing skills like semiconductor design and manufacturing.

“This is clearly a critical component of a computer system and the purchase by the Chinese or other nations merits a full review to determine what our risks are,” said Michael R. Wessell, a commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group that monitors the national security implications of trade with China for Congress.

I.B.M., which invented the disk drive in the 1950s and which dominated the industry through the 1990s, sold its disk drive business to the Japanese computer maker Hitachi in 2002, leaving just two American companies: Seagate, based in Scotts Valley, Calif., and Western Digital, based in Lake Forest, Calif.

Two other Japanese makers, Fujitsu and Toshiba, and a division of Samsung, a South Korean electronics conglomerate, are also major manufacturers of the storage devices.

Western Digital executives declined to comment.

Kenneth Lieberthal, the senior director for Asia at the National Security Council during the later years of the Clinton administration, expressed strong doubt that the Chinese government would allow a technology company to pursue an acquisition if the transaction were likely to draw criticism from the United States government, even if that criticism did not reach the level of an actual prohibition on a deal.

“The Chinese have been very concerned about how to invest in the United States without producing the kind of political firestorm they ran into when they tried to buy Unocal,” said Mr. Lieberthal, a professor of politics and business administration at the University of Michigan. “The government really does not want to confront the kind of situation it ran into with Unocal.”

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation, a state-owned company, abandoned its plan to buy Unocal in 2005 when it touched off opposition in Congress. Mr. Lieberthal said that the Chinese government had only been lukewarm about supporting Cnooc, and was likely to be even more cautious now. “If’ they’ve really decided to go after a high-end computer equipment manufacturer, they’ve really decided to test the waters,” he said.

If a Chinese company has made an advance to an American company in a technologically sensitive industry without obtaining prior support from the Chinese government, the Chinese company would be in serious trouble with Beijing officials, Mr. Lieberthal said. So it is unlikely that any serious approach would be made by a Chinese company without careful prior consultations in Beijing.

Yet the Chinese government also faces a quandary: how to improve yields on its foreign exchange reserves, more than two-thirds of it in dollars. Roughly $100 billion is believed to be in American mortgage-backed securities, an investment that has suffered during the recent financial turmoil.

A Chinese government investment fund spent $3 billion to buy nearly 10 percent of the Blackstone Group this summer, but made a point of taking nonvoting shares to reduce the risk of a political backlash. Stakes in financial services companies also tend to be less controversial than stakes in high-tech enterprises.

Beijing authorities are also starting to encourage companies and even individuals to invest more overseas, as a way to offset some of the foreign investment pouring into China. The inflow of money from investment and trade surpluses has been putting upward pressure on the value of China’s currency, threatening to erode some of the competitiveness of Chinese exports.

If a Chinese company does make an actual bid for an American high-tech company, a former government official said, and that bid is blocked for political reasons, then Chinese companies may become even warier of investing in American companies and the government in Beijing may begin to suspect that Washington so distrusts China that it is trying to throw roadblocks in the path of its economic development.

“If they are blocked, I would suspect this would at a minimum contribute to their being gun-shy of the U.S. government,” said Mr. Lieberthal, a Chinese speaker who stays in close touch with a range of Chinese government officials and American corporate leaders.

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/bu...5drive.html?hp





Interesting Thing About Slow Vista Network Speed
Dloneranger

background - M2N32-SLI DELUXE, 5600+ cpu, 2Gb ram, dual boot system xp and vista

on xp the network speed was between 30-50%
on vista it was stuck at just over 5%

so I followed all the advice about disabling autotuning etc, tried setting all the differerent lan driver settings, played with the tcp window size, latest drivers etc ....
none of it made a bit of difference, I was still stuck on 5% usage <grrrr>

until.... I stopped playing music...
doesn't matter what I play back music with, if it's playing or paused the lan speed seems to be locked at the 5%
stopping playback or quitting the player lets the file copy go to the 30-50% instantly

oddly, if I play a video, the lan transfers go up to 10%

playing an mp3 and video at the same time gives the same 10% and the usage stays the same even if the video is closed

after that the lan is limited to 10% when any audio/video programs are playing (as soon as they're closed it jumps back up to 30-50%, start them and it's down to the 10% again)

I can see it's not cpu usage, as it happens even while the video/audio is paused

In summary - not a clue why it happens , but I've seen this behaviour on a few different machines now
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=83112





European Legal Circles Await Ruling by Top Appeals Court on Microsoft
Kevin J. O’Brien

Perhaps the most closely watched figure in European legal circles this summer has been Bo Vesterdorf, the Danish judge who heads Europe’s top appeals court, with antitrust lawyers hanging on his every public utterance.

They are interested in how the Court of First Instance, the body that he leads, will rule when it announces its decision Sept. 17 on Microsoft’s appeal of Europe’s biggest antitrust case ever. But Judge Vesterdorf, 61, who has said he plans to retire on the day the decision is made public, has avoided any discussion of the case.

Christopher Fretwell, a court spokesman, said Judge Vesterdorf, who has presided over the court since March 1998, would not give interviews on the case before the Microsoft verdict.

“He’s been very, very careful not to give anything away,” said Jonathan Zuck, the president of the Association for Competitive Technology, a group based in Washington that has intervened in the case to support Microsoft. “But whatever comes out, there are huge issues that will be decided here.”

Less than a month before the ruling’s publication, expectations for a watershed decision are running high. And despite the information vacuum, lawyers on both sides of the case say they expect the court to render a split decision of sorts — giving both Microsoft and the European Commission victories on key legal points.

Microsoft, the reasoning goes, will prevail on the issue of bundling, with the court recognizing the company’s right to wrap new extras like voice recognition, antivirus and media player software into its dominant Windows operating system.

But the same court is seen as upholding the commission’s demand that Microsoft share at reasonable cost the computer code that competitors need to make their software compatible with computers using the Microsoft operating system. In its original 2004 decision, the commission ruled that Microsoft had used the predominance of its Windows operating system to essentially corner the market for work-group servers.

The Court of First Instance in Luxembourg is Europe’s main appeals court for challenges to the European Commission. Judge Vesterdorf heads the 13-judge panel.

Regardless of the outcome, antitrust lawyers expect one or both sides to appeal the decision to the European Court of Justice. But that review, which could take up to three more years, will deal only with legal procedures used by the appeals court, not the facts in the case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/te...=1&oref=slogin





Microsoft Looks for the Big Guns in OOXML In-Fighting

Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce

Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce to push the American National Standards Institute to ignore the votes of its advisory committees and vote "yes" on ISO standardizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) format, the one in competition with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) pushed by IBM and Sun.

Gates reportedly picked up the phone when the last INCITS ballot failed by one vote to support Microsoft.

The only trouble with getting the US government involved in voting "aye" is that because of the way OOXML handles XML Scheme the government will have to break its own rules to use it.
http://xml.sys-con.com/read/419573.htm





India Throws MS Open Format Out of the Window

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday gave Microsoft a thumbs-down in the war of standards for office documents.

In a tense meeting at Delhi’s Manak Bhawan, the 21-member technical committee decided that India will vote a ‘no’ against Microsoft’s Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language (OOXML) standard at the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in Geneva on September 2.

“We unanimously agree on the disapproval of OOXML with comments. The same will be submitted to ISO,” National Informatics Centre head and BIS technical committee chairperson Nita Verma said after a marathon meeting that lasted over six hours. There was no need for a voting as only Infosys Technologies and CSI supported Microsoft.

The Open Document Format (ODF) alliance, enjoying widespread support from academia and corporates like Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Google, were in a jubilant mood having succeeded in stalling OOXML from being accepted as a standard in India.

Microsoft said it respect’s the government’s decision. “There were only three options `Yes’, `No’ and `Abstain’ to be taken and we respect the government’s decision,” Microsoft’s legal affairs head Rakesh Bakshi said.

He, however, added that India’s ‘No’ vote will become a ‘Yes’ if Microsoft is able to resolve all technical issues with OOXML before the ballot resolution committee of ISO.

Prof DB Phatak of IIT Mumbai, who was instrumental in conducting the meetings, looked relieved after being flooded with calls from both camps over the week.

The Microsoft camp complained that when ODF was being standardised by ISO, they did not oppose it and now the ODF camp refused to return the favour. ODF supporters said they would have no problems with OOXML if all the 200 technical issues were taken care of.

Amongst hectic lobbying from both camps, the US government on Thursday said that it will abstain from voting. China has already voted a ‘No’ against Microsoft, while Malaysia, Denmark and Switzerland are supporting the software major.

A global alliance of Sun-IBM, Oracle, Google, Red Hat have ganged up against Microsoft which is being supported by Apple, Quark, Accenture and Novell. On Indian soil, Infosys, HCL, Skelta, Sonata Software and Sify have come out in support of Microsoft.

September 2 is the last date to submit the vote with comments to ISO. About 123 counties are participating in the vote. Votes from most are still to come. Canada, Czech Republic, Iran, Japan, Libya, Cuba, New Zealand, UK are likely to back the IBM-Sun’s ODF Alliance.

On the other hand, Belgium, Finland, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Singapore, Korea, France and Australia are likely to abstain from voting.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/2305780.cms





Shareholders OK $8.2B Tribune Co. Buyout
UPI

Tribune Co. stockholders have overwhelmingly approved an $8.2 billion deal to take the Chicago media company private, the company said Tuesday.

A preliminary vote tally showed 97 percent of investor votes in hand supported the $34-a-share buyout led by real estate mogul Sam Zell, Tribune said.

Zell wasn't at the meeting in Chicago for the vote on the deal, Tribune said.

The company, which owns 11 daily newspapers, 23 TV stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, borrowed $7 billion to finance the first step of the transaction and must take on $4.2 billion more debt to finish the buyout.

It also needs U.S. Federal Communications Commission permission to own TV stations and newspapers in the same market.

Tribune -- whose newspapers include the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Hartford Courant and Baltimore Sun -- has said it believes the deal will close in the fourth quarter.

It has also said and financing for the deal -- from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. -- is fully committed.

The company has said it would sell the Cubs and related assets but plans to keep its newspapers.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Busines...o_buyout/8448/





RIAA approved client

US Man Admits P2P Child Porn Charges

David Leroy Knellinger jailed for seven years
Clement James

A US man has been sentenced to 87 months in prison for receipt of child pornography via a peer-to-peer network.

David Leroy Knellinger Sr, 60, pleaded guilty before the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to one count of receiving child pornography.

US District Judge Robert Payne also ordered Knellinger to pay a $15,000 fine and serve five years of supervised release following his prison term.

Knellinger admitted to using iMesh peer-to-peer software to obtain three videos depicting child pornography.

In a related incident, the child victim in one video has been identified by law enforcement officers and her alleged abuser, Kenneth Freeman, was a fugitive on the 15 Most Wanted list of the US Marshal's Service.

Freeman was arrested in Hong Kong in May and is currently contesting extradition proceedings.

The investigation of Knellinger was conducted by the FBI and arose from an investigation conducted by the US Postal Inspection Service.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Brian Hood for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Alexandra Gelber for the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/21...p2p-child-porn





Emmis CFO: No "Measurable Effect" From Satellite Radio
FMQB

Emmis Communications CFO Patrick Walsh discussed what his company considered a "threat" to terrestrial radio, while speaking at the Noble Financial Conference in Charleston, SC yesterday. Walsh said he did not consider satellite radio to have a "measurable effect" and described it as a niche business.

Walsh said that Emmis views "the threat as being much more fragmentation from the iPod and Internet streaming and the fragmentation from media, whether it be YouTube or other media being delivered on the Internet just fragmenting peoples’ time," according to Radio Ink.

He continued, “Satellite radio doesn’t show up in our diaries very often. The people that utilize satellite radio often toggle between AM and FM and satellite radio, and it really hasn’t caused a measurable effect in our business yet. We reach hundreds of millions of people every day. Ninety-three percent of Americans listen to AM/FM radio every week. Satellite radio is a niche business focused on people willing to spend 13 dollars per month for the radio. Which for long-haul truckers or people who are advocates of a music format which may not reach a mass market – if you’re a passionate Blue Grass listener in New York City – it probably makes sense for you."

Walsh called the satcaster business model "challenging" and described the proposed XM-Sirius merger as an attempt to "with the government to solve a business model problem." He concluded that satellite radio "is competition but I don’t think it’s the principal competition for radio going forward."
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=460839





Lebanon Bans Tale of Fighters in Militias
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

Over the next three months, the Lebanese artist Rabih Mroué will stage his new performance piece in Paris, Rome and the capitals of Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. But he will not present it here, for the audience with whom it might resonate most.

This week, an Interior Ministry censorship board banned performances of the piece, “How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke,” which was to have received its premiere this weekend.

For Mr. Mroué, the outright ban is a first. And he says it bodes ill for an art scene that gestated during a period of precarious peace but is now squeezed by the government’s fear of renewed civil war.

“The margin of freedom is getting smaller and smaller,” he said during a break from his day job as an illustrator for a Lebanese television station. “The vision is becoming so narrow, and there is no more room for different voices.”

Written by Mr. Mroué with Fadi Toufic, “Nancy” presents an episodic history of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war through the experiences of four fighters who served in different militias. For the duration of the performance, Mr. Mroué; his wife, Lina Saneh; and two other actors sit on a couch meant for three. Above each actor’s head, like speech balloons in a comic strip, are a microphone and a screen projecting posters of the “martyrs” and militias that are common to this day on the streets of Beirut.

The four characters tell stories of contradiction that ricochet off one another. They will adhere to an ideological position and then change it. They pledge loyalty to a political leader and then betray him. They make allies and then forsake them. They switch sides and get lost.

In each story they tell they are killed in battle, only to come back to life again in the next round, like irrepressible players of video games.

The various and competing narratives weave a dense web that gives a sense of how conflicts play out over the years in any city — Beirut, Baghdad, Sarajevo, Belfast — riven by sectarian strife.

Mr. Mroué, 40, belongs to a tight-knit generation of artists, writers and filmmakers that has put Beirut back on the cultural map since the end of the civil war in 1990. They have learned to maneuver on the margins of mainstream society, striving to create works of formal precision and political insight with as little interference as possible from Lebanon’s fragile, divided government.

But that space is indeed shrinking. Since the late 1990s, Mr. Mroué had eluded the censors by ignoring them. He didn’t bother to clear his scripts. The price, he said, was that he could perform each piece for a few nights only, he could not accept a fee, and he relied on art spaces that are slightly off the radar.

But after he staged “Who’s Afraid of Representation” — a piece incorporating the true story of a civil servant who killed some of his colleagues when he was fired from his job — in late 2005, officials from Lebanon’s Interior Ministry called him in and demanded that he eliminate portions of the performance.

Since then, performance spaces have been reluctant to stage anything without prior approval from the censorship board. So this summer Mr. Mroué decided to take his chances with the censors.

After a weeklong struggle with Mr. Mroué over parts of the script, the censorship board banned the performance on Aug. 14.

“I expected to have to cut from the text,” Mr. Mroué said. “But I didn’t expect it to be stopped in such a violent way.”

He appealed the decision and was rebuffed. The censors would not provide an explanation. When he started receiving offers of political cover from various factions, he said, he knew that the fight he had on his hands was no longer his own, and that the performance risked being used anyway.

“How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke” was to have been presented on Aug. 18 at Art Lounge, a fashionably disheveled gallery that doubles as a bar and boutique on the outskirts of the city in the drab Karantina industrial district.

Reached by telephone, the owner of the space, Nino Azzi, said he was relieved. “It’s better to sort out all the legalities in advance,” he said. “It’s a bit delicate right now.”

A year after fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the country remains on tenterhooks. The lingering specter of the long civil war is reinforced by a standoff between pro-government and opposition parties, and by continued fighting between the Lebanese Army and Islamists in the north.

Mr. Mroué and his contemporaries were once considered part of a postwar generation, but they have not entirely escaped Lebanon’s cyclical violence. Mr. Mroué is more aware of that than most.

“We know we are in the midst of a cold civil war,” he said. “There may be no fighting, but we know the fighters are there. Even the younger generation is ready to fight.”

Born in Beirut in 1967, Mr. Mroué studied theater at the Lebanese University, where he met Ms. Saneh, his wife and frequent collaborator.

When they were in their early 20s, the couple created a stage adaptation of “The Journey of Little Gandhi,” a novel by the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury. Since then they have collaborated formally and informally on an ever more multidisciplinary body of work that includes videos and installations combining photography, text and sculpture.

Yet theater remains the spine of their art. Few of the theater directors who were active in the 1980s are staging plays in Beirut now. Mr. Mroué and Ms. Saneh have helped sustain Lebanese theater by pushing it into the realm of performance art.

With a string of formally inventive, astringent performance pieces to their credit, they are to Beirut what the Wooster Group is to New York: a blend of avant-garde innovation, conceptual complexity and political urgency, all grounded in earthy humor.

“Rabih is a thinker,” said Walid Raad, one of Lebanon’s best-known artists. “There are concepts, plays, figures, texts and forms — and Rabih has something to say to, and about, them. At the same time, it always seems as if his dialogue is in the service of the present and future, in Lebanon and elsewhere.”

George Arbid, a architect and university professor who follows Mr. Mroué’s work closely, said, “He is seriously interested in the local audience, and yet his work travels everywhere.”

Local presentations of Mr. Mroué’s work are becoming increasingly rare. He has been part of the international art circuit since 2002, traveling extensively to biennials and theater festivals as far afield as Sydney, Australia; Seoul, South Korea; and Tokyo, where “Nancy” had its world premiere in March. When he does perform for the Beirut public, it constitutes a major cultural event.

In Mr. Mroué’s view, a Beirut audience would have implicitly understood the genesis of his latest piece. “It came out of a real fear of another civil war,” he said. “For those of us who already lived through one, we can live through almost anything — but not that, not again.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/18/theater/18perf.html





China Arrests or Warns 60 for Spreading Rumours

Police in east China have arrested or warned 60 people for spreading rumours by SMS or on the Internet so far this year and specified the threat of modern communications to society, state media said on Tuesday.

China has an army of cyber-police who patrol the Internet for unfavourable content, but their targets are more often politically sensitive subjects than pornography.

Xia Cunxi, a public security spokesman in the eastern province of Jiangsu, said 60 were accused of spreading rumours, lies or offensive messages, the official China Daily said in its online edition.

"Rumours spread by modern means of communication can be a greater menace to society than those spread by word of mouth," Xia was quoted as saying.

The report did not specify how the cases were dealt with or how many suspects were arrested and charged.

In one case, police in July detained two men who sent text messages to more than 200 relatives or friends, claiming people with AIDS were spreading the disease by using toothpicks at restaurants and returning them to their containers, it said.

An Internet posting alleged that police chased a man riding a motorcycle with his son on the back, causing the death of the son who had won a place in a prestigious university.

In April, police launched an immediate investigation after a posting claimed a school in Jiangsu would be the site of a shooting spree with a death toll exceeding that of the Virginia Tech shootings in the United States just days earlier.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200708...553508c_1.html





US Kills Controversial Anti-Terror Database
Layer 8

Long criticized for keeping track of regular everyday citizens, the government’s anti-terror database will officially close Sept. 17. The Threat and Local Observation Notices or TALON, was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. servicemembers and defense civilians all over the world.

Congress and others protested its apparent use as an unauthorized citizen tracking database. The TALON system came under fire in 2005 for improperly storing information about some civilian individuals and non-government-affiliated groups on its database. The Air Force developed TALON, or the Threat and Local Observation Notice system in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a way to gather data on possible terrorist threats.

Anti-war groups and other organizations, protested after it was revealed last year that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies. The Defense Department conducted a four-point review of the system in December 2005 and, as a result, purged a large amount of information that was deemed unnecessary from the database, the DoD said in a release. The Defense Department Inspector General reviewed TALON, and in a report dated June 27, 2007, found that the program legally gathered and maintained information on individuals and organizations.

It is being closed because reporting to the system had declined significantly, and it was determined to no longer be of analytical value, said Army Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman said I a release. The announcement was not unexpected as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made it clear in April he wanted to change the Pentagon's intelligence gathering operations and said TALON would likely be shut down. The department is working to develop a new reporting system to replace TALON, but in the interim, all information concerning force protection threats will go to the FBI's Guardian reporting system.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18609





School Pulls Critical Facebook Site
Charles Mandel

Dalhousie University says it had a Facebook group pulled that wrongly accused the institution of abusing animals during scientific research.

The group gained 15,000 members last week, showing just how quickly information on social-networking websites can spread, and the challenges businesses and institutions face as they deal with defamatory material online.

The case has caused one Internet expert to warn that institutions will continue to deal with the problem as online social networking grows.

“What we’re seeing is that all of these new technologies and Internet applications are double-edged swords,’’ said Philippa Lawson, executive director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa.

“I think there is no question that we’re going to see a vast increase in the number of complaints about this kind of thing.”

Dalhousie says it had the group shut down not because of its popularity, but because the information was incorrect and no forum for debate existed within the group.

The group was called “Stop Dogs and Puppies from being murdered at Dalhousie University” and alleged the school still used the animals in scientific research.

Charles Crosby, a spokesman for the school, said the school hasn’t used any dogs in its research for well over a decade.

Posted to the group was an image of a dog looking lonely and scared. That did not come from the university, although it was meant to look that way, Crosby said.

It wasn’t until the creator of the site, listed as Amy Scott, shut down all discussion on the group that Dalhousie decided to contact Facebook and have the group pulled.

Crosby said so long as debate occurred around the subject, the school didn’t have a problem, but once discussion was discontinued, the school took action.

Jason MacIsaac, a web designer in Halifax, said he just learned Thursday the school had shut down the group to which he belonged. He said many people believe the school is using dogs in its research and called the yanking of the group an infringement on free speech.

MacIsaac believes the school should have opened its own Facebook group and offered testimony, photos and written proof that it wasn’t using dogs in research rather than yanking the other group. “It wasn’t a malicious smear campaign at all.”

Scott also has an online petition calling for the university to stop using dogs in research. She could not be reached for comment.

Facebook staff did not return a request for an interview or reply to e-mailed questions.

Dalhousie has tried unsuccessfully to reach Scott as well to discuss the problem with her. Crosby said the university has no plans at this time to pursue a defamation suit. Nor will the school try and pull the online petition even though it’s incorrect, according to Crosby.

The university “predominantly” uses rodents and insects in research now, Crosby said, adding that the welfare of animals at the school is a top priority.

“This is important life-saving research that these researchers are engaged in.”

Crosby said the rapid sign-up to the group last week speaks to the technology. “It’s quite viral in the way it spreads. You can spread good news, bad news, and information about an event.

“It seems to spread very quickly because once people sign on, it just spreads like wildfire from there.”

Lawson said such technology possesses fantastic social benefits, but can also be used in ways which harm individuals and society. “We’re going to see many, many more cases. I would be surprised if this is not a snowballing kind of problem.”
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/na...0f02ab3&k=4865





Crackdown on Public Service Snoops
Ben Woodhead

FEDERAL government agencies have uncovered dozens of cases of employees improperly accessing confidential client records following the launch of new systems to track snooping.

Government agencies are considering criminal charges against some of their employees

The crackdown has led to a spate of resignations and the Child Support Agency is reviewing a number of breaches as it considers whether or not to press criminal charges against former employees.

The reports come a year after a series of sackings at Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office, where hundreds of staff were caught accessing client records that they were not authorised to view.

Child Support Agency general manager Matt Miller said breaches by employees were uncovered after its fraud detection systems were strengthened in November last year.

The software has since been used to audit 45,000 client records, with three confirmed cases of improper access detected and one possible instance still under investigation.

"The Child Support Agency places paramount importance on customer privacy and has zero tolerance of unauthorised access of customer records," general manager Matt Miller said.

"Of the three confirmed cases all three staff members resigned prior to determination of Code of Conduct proceedings. Despite this the agency is continuing the assessment of these cases in order to determine if criminal charges should proceed."

Mr Miller said the agency would continue to expand the software it used to detect unauthorised access of client records.

Medicare Australia, meanwhile, has confirmed 49 instances of staff inappropriately browsing confidential records after it launched a review program during the 2007 financial year.

The program included the introduction of a detection system that was modelled on data matching rules used by Centrelink, which has uncovered more than 790 instances of staff spying since 2004.

"Medicare Australia takes browsing very seriously and has a dedicated unit in place to proactively review staff access to Medicare Australia information," an agency spokeswoman said.

"Where unauthorised access is detected, swift and appropriate disciplinary and/or legal action is taken."

The spokeswoman said 147 investigations into possibly inappropriate access were launched during the first year of the program and in 63 cases the employees were cleared of wrongdoing.

"Forty-nine cases were finalised with a range of disciplinary action being taken, including information or formal counselling, written reprimands and fines. A number of operators resigned either before or after the completion of the investigation into their case," she said.

A further 35 cases are yet to be finalised.

The spying incidents came despite ongoing efforts by federal government agencies to beef up computer systems and education programs designed to detect and stamp out improper access to sensitive client records.

Mr Miller said 3500 agency employees had received fraud training since July last year and all staff were retrained at least every two years.

Medicare Australia staff are warned about the consequences of browsing client records whenever they log on and all staff access to records is monitored.

A spokesman for Centrelink said the agency had compiled data on unauthorised employee access to client records during the 2007 financial year and the information would be published in the agency's annual report.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/...-15306,00.html





What’s Off the Record at N.H.T.S.A.? Almost Everything
Christopher Jensen

A “family” of crash test dummies used in vehicle safety tests. (Photograph released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

If you want to know something as simple as who heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, don’t bother to ask the safety agency’s communications office. Without special permission, officials there are no longer allowed to provide information to reporters except on a background basis, which means it cannot be attributed to a spokesman.

Without such attribution, there are few circumstances under which most reporters will report such information. This makes for interesting dealings with the office charged with providing information about the nation’s top automotive safety agency.

So, I will end the suspense about the boss’s identity. The administrator is Nicole R. Nason, who took over on May 31, 2006, after she was appointed to the post by President Bush.

And it is she who put the big hush on one of the government’s most important safety agencies. I found this out recently when I asked to talk to an N.H.T.S.A. researcher about some technical safety issues in which he had a great deal of expertise. Agency officials told me I could talk to the expert on a background basis, but if I wanted to use any information or quotes from him, that would have to be worked out later with a N.H.T.S.A. official. The arrangement struck me as manipulative, and I declined to agree to it.

It seems that Ms. Nason has adopted a policy that has blocked virtually all of her staff — including the communications office — from providing any information to reporters on the record, which means that it can be attributed.

As an alternative I was told I could interview Ms. Nason on the record (instead of the expert on the subject of my article). I declined, failing to see how her appointment as administrator — she was trained as a lawyer — made her a expert in that subject.

When I said I would like to talk to Ms. Nason on the record about her no-attribution policy, she was not available.

The agency’s new policy effectively means that some of the world’s top safety researchers are no longer allowed to talk to reporters or to be freely quoted about automotive safety issues that affect pretty much everybody.

“My God,” said Joan Claybrook, who was N.H.T.S.A. administrator from 1977 to 1981 and is now president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. Given that N.H.T.S.A. is the leading source of automotive safety information in the United States, its researchers are public officials and people are entitled to “know what information they have, whether it is on paper or in their heads,” Ms. Claybrook said.

The policy of allowing information to be attributed only to political appointees is intermittently enforced around other parts of the Department of Transportation, including the Federal Railroad Administration. But it is a radical change from the way N.H.T.S.A has operated for at least 20 years. In the past, reporters could talk to its experts and the agency was proud to discuss its research and accomplishments.

Ms. Nason felt it was necessary for N.H.T.S.A. to have a “central spokesperson” and “we were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record,” David Kelly, her chief of staff, told me. He also insisted, after our telephone conversation, that he did not want to be quoted and had intended to speak only on background. (My notes show no such request.)

So that central spokesperson is Ms. Nason, whose previous job was assistant secretary for governmental affairs in the Department of Transportation. “In that position, she was responsible for oversight of congressional affairs, coordinating all legislative and nonlegislative relationships between the D.O.T. and Congress,” according to her N.H.T.S.A. biography. If she has any experience in keeping a Congressman from skidding out of control, that could come in handy now that she is speaking for an entire agency of seasoned safety experts.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2007...st-everything/





School Uniforms Track Kids
Stefanie Olsen

Parents already have a way to monitor kids' phone calls and text messages, and soon they might have the means to track children wearing school uniforms.

An English manufacturer of uniforms is considering adding satellite tracking devices to its line of school clothing so that parents can locate their child's whereabouts at all times, according to an article from the Daily Telegraph in Australia. The manufacturer, Lancashire-based Trutex, believes there is a demand for such clothing. In a recent survey of its own, the company found that 59 percent of 800 parents surveyed were interested in buying uniforms with embedded Global Positioning Systems.

Still, it seems unlikely that a teenager would willingly wear a GPS-laced outfit. According to the article, only half of kids 12 and under (who were surveyed) said that they wouldn't mind wearing the clothes.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-976...&subj=NewsBlog





We can hear you now

Classified Surveillance Intel Revealed

McConnell confirms AT&T, Verizon, others help government with wiretaps
AP

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush administration as it tries to prevent terrorism.

McConnell’s comments were made in an interview with the El Paso Times last week and posted as a transcript on the newspaper’s web site Wednesday.

The revelations raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

Among the disclosures:

• McConnell confirmed for the first time that the private sector assisted with President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued for their cooperation. “Now if you play out the suits at the value they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies,” McConnell said, arguing that they deserve immunity for their help.
• He provided new details on court rulings handed down by the 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves classified eavesdropping operations and whose proceedings are almost always entirely secret. McConnell said a ruling that went into effect May 31 required the government to get court warrants to monitor communications between two foreigners if the conversation travels on a wire in the U.S. network. Millions of calls each day do, because of the robust nature of the U.S. systems.
• McConnell said it takes 200 hours to assemble a FISA warrant on a single telephone number. “We’re going backwards,” he said. “We couldn’t keep up.”
• Offering never-disclosed figures, McConnell also revealed that fewer than 100 people inside the United States are monitored under FISA warrants. However, he said, thousands of people overseas are monitored.

Even as he shed new light on the classified operations, McConnell asserted that the current debate in Congress about whether to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will cost American lives because of all the information it revealed to terrorists.

“Part of this is a classified world. The fact that we’re doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die,” he said.

Official: FISA is a necessary tool
McConnell was in El Paso, Texas, last week for a conference on border security hosted by House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. The spy chief joined Reyes for an interview with his local paper.

At the end of the interview, McConnell cautioned reporter Chris Roberts that he should consider whether enemies of the U.S. could gain from the information he just shared in the interview, Roberts said. McConnell left it to the paper to decide what to publish.

McConnell appeared days after Congress passed a temporary law to expand the government’s ability to monitor suspects in national security investigations — terrorists, spies and others — without first seeking court approval in certain cases. The highly contentious measure expires in six months.

After Sept. 11, Bush authorized the terrorist surveillance program to monitor conversations between people in the United States and others overseas when terrorism is suspected. Until January, no warrants were required. But as the Democratic Congress took over, the Bush administration decided to bring the program under the oversight of the FISA court.

McConnell said the court initially ruled that the program was appropriate and legitimate. But when the ruling had to be renewed in the spring, another judge saw the operations differently. This judge, who McConnell did not identify, decided that the government needed a warrant to monitor a conversation between foreigners when the signal traveled on a wire in the U.S. communications network.

Did official reveal too much?
McConnell said the government got a temporary stay on the ruling, but it expired at the end of May. “After the 31st of May, we were in extremis because now we have significantly less capability,” he said.

At the same time, the intelligence community was wrapping up years of work on a National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the homeland — an analysis that is considered its most comprehensive judgment. It found the threat was increasing, McConnell noted.

Because he sees FISA as a major tool to keep terrorists out of the country, McConnell said he pressed Congress to change the law.

McConnell’s interview raised concerns at the Justice Department, where senior officials questioned whether the intelligence chief had overstepped in discussing the secret FISA court.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse referred questions to McConnell’s office, where his spokesman Ross Feinstein declined to comment.

In a phone interview, Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra said he never felt at liberty to discuss some of the information that McConnell did, including the FISA court rulings, but the executive branch gets to decide what is classified. “What I think it tells you is how important they believe it is to get this FISA thing done right,” said Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

Pushing back on accusations
He said McConnell is hurt by the personal attacks on him during the FISA recent debate. Among them, Democrats have alleged that he negotiated in bad faith and was too beholden to the White House.

In addition, Hoekstra said he thinks McConnell wanted to push back on accusations that the legislation gave the attorney general unprecedented new powers. “I think they felt they had to become more public,” he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20396282/





Transcript: Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Chris Roberts

The following is the transcript of a question and answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

Question: How much has President Bush or members of his administration formed your response to the FISA debate?

Answer: Not at all. When I came back in, remember my previous assignment was director of the NSA, so this was an area I have known a little bit about. So I came back in. I was nominated the first week of January. The administration had made a decision to put the terrorist surveillance program into the FISA court. I think that happened the 7th of Jan. So as I come in the door and I'm prepping for the hearings, this sort of all happened. So the first thing I want to know is what's this program and what's the background and I was pretty surprised at what I learned. First off, the issue was the technology had changed and we had worked ourselves into a position that we were focusing on foreign terrorist communications, and this was a terrorist foreigner in a foreign country. The issue was international communications are on a wire so all of a sudden we were in a position because of the wording in the law that we had to have a warrant to do that. So the most important thing to capture is that it's a foreigner in a foreign country, required to get a warrant. Now if it were wireless, we would not be required to get a warrant. Plus we were limited in what we were doing to terrorism only and the last time I checked we had a mission called foreign intelligence, which should be construed to mean anything of a foreign intelligence interest, North Korea, China, Russia, Syria, weapons of mass destruction proliferation, military development and it goes on and on and on. So when I engaged with the administration, I said we've gotten ourselves into a position here where we need to clarify, so the FISA issue had been debated and legislation had been passed in the house in 2006, did not pass the Senate. Two bills were introduced in the Senate, I don't know if it was co-sponsorship or two different bills, but Sen. (Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.) had a bill and Sen. Specter had a bill and it may have been the same bill, I don't know, but the point is a lot of debate, a lot of dialogue. So, it was submitted to the FISA court and the first ruling in the FISA court was what we needed to do we could do with an approval process that was at a summary level and that was OK, we stayed in business and we're doing our mission. Well in the FISA process, you may or may not be aware ...

Q: When you say summary level, do you mean the FISA court?

A: The FISA court. The FISA court ruled presented the program to them and they said the program is what you say it is and it's appropriate and it's legitimate, it's not an issue and was had approval. But the FISA process has a renewal. It comes up every so many days and there are 11 FISA judges. So the second judge looked at the same data and said well wait a minute I interpret the law, which is the FISA law, differently. And it came down to, if it's on a wire and it's foreign in a foreign country, you have to have a warrant and so we found ourselves in a position of actually losing ground because it was the first review was less capability, we got a stay and that took us to the 31st of May. After the 31st of May we were in extremis because now we have significantly less capability. And meantime, the community, before I came back, had been working on a National Intelligence Estimate on terrorist threat to the homeland. And the key elements of the terrorist threat to the homeland, there were four key elements, a resilient determined adversary with senior leadership willing to die for the cause, requiring a place to train and develop, think of it as safe haven, they had discovered that in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now the Pakistani government is pushing and pressing and attempting to do something about it, but by and large they have areas of safe haven. So leadership that can adapt, safe haven, intermediate leadership, these are think of them as trainers, facilitators, operational control guys. And the fourth part is recruits. They have them, they've taken them. This area is referred to as the FATA, federally administered tribal areas, they have the recruits and now the objective is to get them into the United States for mass casualties to conduct terrorist operations to achieve mass casualties. All of those four parts have been carried out except the fourth. They have em, but they haven't been successful. One of the major tools for us to keep them out is the FISA program, a significant tool and we're going the wrong direction. So, for me it was extremis to start talking not only to the administration, but to members of the hill. So from June until the bill was passed, I think I talked to probably 260 members, senators and congressmen. We submitted the bill in April, had an open hearing 1 May, we had a closed hearing in May, I don't remember the exact date. Chairman (U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas) had two hearings and I had a chance to brief the judiciary committee in the house, the intelligence committee in the house and I just mentioned the Senate, did not brief the full judiciary committee in the Senate, but I did meet with Sen. (Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.) and Sen. (Arlen Specter, R-Pa.), and I did have an opportunity on the Senate side, they have a tradition there of every quarter they invite the director of national intelligence in to talk to them update them on topics of interest. And that happened in (June 27). Well what they wanted to hear about was Iraq and Afghanistan and for whatever reason, I'm giving them my review and they ask questions in the order in which they arrive in the room. The second question was on FISA, so it gave me an opportunity to, here I am worrying about this problem and I have 41 senators and I said several things. The current threat is increasing, I'm worried about it. Our capability is decreasing and let me explain the problem.

Q: Can't you get the warrant after the fact?

A: The issue is volume and time. Think about foreign intelligence. What it presented me with an opportunity is to make the case for something current, but what I was really also trying to put a strong emphasis on is the need to do foreign intelligence in any context. My argument was that the intelligence community should not be restricted when we are conducting foreign surveillance against a foreigner in a foreign country, just by dint of the fact that it happened to touch a wire. We haven't done that in wireless for years.

Q: So you end up with people tied up doing paperwork?

A: It takes about 200 man hours to do one telephone number. Think about it from the judges standpoint. Well, is this foreign intelligence? Well how do you know it's foreign intelligence? Well what does Abdul calling Mohammed mean, and how do I interpret that? So, it's a very complex process, so now, I've got people speaking Urdu and Farsi and, you know, whatever, Arabic, pull them off the line have them go through this process to justify what it is they know and why and so on. And now you've got to write it all up and it goes through the signature process, take it through (the Justice Department), and take it down to the FISA court. So all that process is about 200 man hours for one number. We're going backwards, we couldn't keep up. So the issue was ...

Q: How many calls? Thousands?

A: Don't want to go there. Just think, lots. Too many. Now the second part of the issue was under the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to have a partner and they were being sued. Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities. So that was part of the request. So we went through that and we argued it. Some wanted to limit us to terrorism. My argument was, wait a minute, why would I want to limit it to terrorism. It may be that terrorists are achieving weapons of mass destruction, the only way I would know that is if I'm doing foreign intelligence by who might be providing a weapon of mass destruction.

Q: And this is still all foreign to foreign communication?

A: All foreign to foreign. So, in the final analysis, I was after three points, no warrant for a foreigner overseas, a foreign intelligence target located overseas, liability protection for the private sector and the third point was we must be required to have a warrant for surveillance against a U.S. person. And when I say U.S. person I want to make sure you capture what that means. That does not mean citizen. That means a foreigner, who is here, we still have to have a warrant because he's here. My view is that that's the right check and balances and it's the right protection for the country and lets us still do our mission for protection of the country. And we're trying to fend off foreign threats.

Q: So are you satisfied with it the way it is now?

A: I am. The issue that we did not address, which has to be addressed is the liability protection for the private sector now is proscriptive, meaning going forward. We've got a retroactive problem. When I went through and briefed the various senators and congressmen, the issue was alright, look, we don't want to work that right now, it's too hard because we want to find out about some issues of the past. So what I recommended to the administration is, 'Let's take that off the table for now and take it up when Congress reconvenes in September.'

Q: With an eye toward the six-month review?

A: No, the retroactive liability protection has got to be addressed.

Q: And that's not in the current law?

A: It is not. Now people have said that I negotiated in bad faith, or I did not keep my word or whatever...

Q: That you had an agenda that you weren't honest about.

A: I'll give you the facts from my point of view. When I checked on board I had my discussion with the president. I'm an apolitical figure. I'm not a Republican, I'm not a Democrat. I have voted for both. My job is as a professional to try to do this job the best way I can in terms of, from the intelligence community, protect the nation. So I made my argument that we should have the ability to do surveillance the same way we've done it for the past 50 years and not be inhibited when it's a foreigner in a foreign country. The president's guidance to me early in the process, was, 'You've got the experience. I trust your judgement. You make the right call. There's no pressure from anybody here to tell you how to do it. He did that early. He revisited with me in June. He did it again in July and he said it publicly on Friday before the bill was passed. We were at the FBI, it's an annual thing, we go to the FBI and do a homeland security kind of update. So he came out at noon and said, 'I'm requesting that Congress pass this bill. It's essential. Do it before you go on recess. I'm depending on Mike McConnell's recommendations. And that was the total sum and substance of the guidance and the involvement from the White House with regard to how I should make the call. Now, as we negotiated, we started with 66 pages, were trying to get everything cleaned up at once. When I reduced it to my three points, we went from 66 pages to 11. Now, this is a very, very complex bill. I had a team of 20 lawyers working. You can change a word in a paragraph and end up with some major catastrophe down in paragraph 27, subsection 2c, to shut yourself down, you'll be out of business. So when we send up our 11 pages, we had a lot of help in making sure we got it just right so it would come back and we'd say wait a minute we can't live with this or one of the lawyers would say, 'Wait we tried that, it won't work, here's the problem.' So we kept going back and forth, so we sent up a version like Monday, we sent up a version on Wednesday, we sent up a version on Thursday. The House leadership, or the Democratic leadership on Thursday took that bill and we talked about it. And my response was there are some things I can't live with in this bill and they said alright we're going to fix them. Now, here's the issue. I never then had a chance to read it for the fix because, again, it's so complex, if you change a word or phrase, or even a paragraph reference, you can cause unintended ...

Q: You have to make sure it's all consistent?

A: Right. So I can't agree to it until it's in writing and my 20 lawyers, who have been doing this for two years, can work through it. So in the final analysis, I was put in the position of making a call on something I hadn't read. So when it came down to crunch time, we got a copy and it had some of the offending language back in it. So I said, 'I can't support it.' And it played out in the House the way it played out in the House. Meantime on the Senate side, there were two versions being looked at. The Wednesday version and the Thursday version. And one side took one version and the other side took the other version. The Thursday version, we had some help, and I didn't get a chance to review it. So now, it's Friday night, the Senate's voting. They were having their debate and I still had not had a chance to review it. So, I walked over, I was up visiting some senators trying to explain some of the background. So I walked over to the chamber and as I walked into the office just off the chamber, it's the vice president's office, somebody gave me a copy. So I looked at the version and said, 'Can't do it. The same language was back in there.'

Q: What was it?

A: Just let me leave it, not too much detail, there were things with regard to our authorities some language around minimization. So it put us in an untenable position. So then I had another version to take a look at, which was our Wednesday version, which basically was unchanged. So I said, well certainly, I'm going to support that Wednesday version. So that's what I said and the vote happened in the Senate and that was on Friday. So now it rolled to the House on Saturday. They took up the bill, they had a spirited debate, my name was invoked several times, not in a favorable light in some cases. (laughs) And they took a vote and it passed 226 to 182, I think. So it's law. The president signed it on Sunday and here we are.

Q: That's far from unanimous. There's obviously going to be more debate on this.

A: There are a couple of issues to just be sensitive to. There's a claim of reverse targeting. Now what that means is we would target somebody in a foreign country who is calling into the United States and our intent is to not go after the bad guy, but to listen to somebody in the United States. That's not legal, it's, it would be a breach of the Fourth Amendment. You can go to jail for that sort of thing. And If a foreign bad guy is calling into the United States, if there's a need to have a warrant, for the person in the United States, you just get a warrant. And so if a terrorist calls in and it's another terrorist, I think the American public would want us to do surveillance of that U.S. person in this case. So we would just get a warrant and do that. It's a manageable thing. On the U.S. persons side it's 100 or less. And then the foreign side, it's in the thousands. Now there's a sense that we're doing massive data mining. In fact, what we're doing is surgical. A telephone number is surgical. So, if you know what number, you can select it out. So that's, we've got a lot of territory to make up with people believing that we're doing things we're not doing.

Q: Even if it's perception, how do you deal with that? You have to do public relations, I assume.

A: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. And you give them the facts the best you can. Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they're using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means and when they go to an alternative means, remember what I said, a significant portion of what we do, this is not just threats against the United States, this is war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Q. So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

A. That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it's a democratic process and sunshine's a good thing. We need to have the debate. The reason that the FISA law was passed in 1978 was an arrangement was worked out between the Congress and the administration, we did not want to allow this community to conduct surveillance, electronic surveillance, of Americans for foreign intelligence unless you had a warrant, so that was required. So there was no warrant required for a foreign target in a foreign land. And so we are trying to get back to what was the intention of '78. Now because of the claim, counterclaim, mistrust, suspicion, the only way you could make any progress was to have this debate in an open way.

Q. So you don't think there was an alternative way to do this?

A. There may have been an alternative way, but we are where are ...

Q. A better way, I should say.

A. All of my briefs initially were very classified. But it became apparent that we were not going to be able to carry the day if we don't talk to more people.

Q. Some might say that's the price you pay for living in a free society. Do you think that this is necessary that these Americans die?

A. We could have gotten there a different way. We conducted intelligence since World War II and we've maintained a sensitivity as far as sources and methods. It's basically a sources and methods argument. If you don't protect sources and methods then those you target will choose alternative means, different paths. As it is today al-Qaida in Iraq is targeting Americans, specifically the coalition. There are activities supported by other nations to import electronic, or explosively formed projectiles, to do these roadside attacks and what we know about that is often out of very sensitive sources and methods. So the more public it is, then they take it away from us. So that's the tradeoff.

Diversity In The Intelligence Community

Q: I wanted to ask you about the diversity question. This has major ramifications here, we have this center of excellence program that's recruiting high school kids, many of whom wouldn't qualify if first generation American citizens weren't allowed.

A: So you agree with me?

Q: It does sound like something that would benefit this area that would also allow you to get people from here who are bicultural and have an openness to seeing things ...

A: You're talking about Hispanics?

Q: Yes.

A: Hispanics are probably the most under-represented group if you think of America, what the ethic makeup of America, Hispanics are the most under-represented group in my community. Now, that said, and should increase that Hispanic population and programs like this will do that. That's why the outreach. But also we need, particularly with the current problem of terrorism, we need to have speakers of Urdu and Farsi and Arabic and people from those cultures that understand the issues of tribes and clans and all the things that go with understanding that part of the world. Varying religions and so on. Because it is, it's almost impossible, I've had the chance to live in the Middle East for years, I've studied it for years, it's impossible to understand it without having some feel for the culture and so on. So while I'm all for increasing the diversity along the lines we talked about, I'm also very much in favor of first generation Americans from the countries that are causing issues and problems.

Q: What is the status of that program.

A: It is not in statue. It is not in policy. It has been habit. So we've stated, as a matter of policy, that we're not going to abide by those habits.

Q: And that's already the case?

A: Yes, and are we making progress? Not fast enough, but we will make progress over time.

Q: How do you measure that?

A: Very simple, you get to measure what are you and where are you trying go and are you making progress. I wrestled with this years ago when I was NSA ....

Q: You don't want quotas, though?

A: Quotas are forbidden so we set goals. My way of thinking about it is what is your end state? Now some would say that federal governments should look like America, whatever that is. OK, that sounded like a reasonable metric, so I said, 'Alright, what does America look like?' So I got a bunch of numbers. I said, 'Alright, what do we look like?' and it didn't match, and as I just told you, the one place where there's the greatest mismatch is Hispanic. It's much closer, as matter of fact, people would be surprised how close it is across, at least my community among the other minorities. Now, that said, numbers don't necessarily equal positioning in the organization. So that's another feature we have to work on, is placement of women and minorities in leadership positions.

Q: So, you're quantifying that as well?

A: Yes.

Terrorist Activity On The Nation's Southwest Border

Q: There seems to be very little terrorist-related activity on the Southwest border, which is watched very closely because of the illegal immigration issue. Can you talk about why it's important to be alert here?

A: Let me go back to my NIE, those are unclassified key judgements, pull them down and look at them. You've got committed leadership. You've got a place to train. They've got trainers and they've got recruits. The key now is getting recruits in. So if the key is getting recruits in. So, if you're key is getting recruits in, how would you do that? And so, how would you do that?

Q: I'd go to the northern border where there's nobody watching.

A: And that's a path. Flying in is a path. Taking a ship in is a path. Coming up through the Mexican border is a path. Now are they doing it in great numbers, no. Because we're finding them and we're identifying them and we've got watch lists and we're keeping them at bay. There are numerous situations where people are alive today because we caught them (terrorists). And my point earlier, we catch them or we prevent them because we've got the sources and methods that lets us identify them and do something about it. And you know the more sources and methods are compromised, we have that problem.

Q: And in many cases we don't hear about them?

A: The vast majority you don't hear about. Remember, let me give you a way to think about this. If you've got an issue, you have three potential outcomes, only three. A diplomatic success, an operational success or an intelligence failure. Because all those diplomatic successes and operations successes where there's intelligence contribution, it's not an intelligence success. It's just part of the process. But if there's an intelligence failure ...

Q: Then you hear about it.

A: So, are terrorists coming across the Southwest border? Not in great numbers.

Q: There are some cases?

A: There are some. And would they use it as a path, given it was available to them? In time they will.

Q: If they're successful at it, then they'll probably repeat it.

A: Sure. There were a significant number of Iraqis who came across last year. Smuggled across illegally.

Q: Where was that?

A: Across the Southwest border.

Q: Can you give me anymore detail?

A: I probably could if I had my notebook. It's significant numbers. I'll have somebody get it for you. I don't remember what it is.

Q: The point is it went from a number to (triple) in a single year, because they figured it out. Now some we caught, some we didn't. The ones that get in, what are they going to do? They're going to write home. So, it's not rocket science, word will move around. There's a program now in South America, where you can, once you're in South American countries, you can move around in South America and Central America without a visa. So you get a forged passport in Lebanon or where ever that gets you to South America. Now, no visa, you can move around, and with you're forged passport, as a citizen of whatever, you could come across that border. So, what I'm highlighting is that something ...

Q: Is this how it happened, the cases you're talking about?

A: Yes.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_6685679





The C.I.A. Report

The C.I.A. inspector general’s report on the agency’s failures before Sept. 11 was devastating — but not because it showed that America’s spies missed the rise of Al Qaeda. George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, rang the Qaeda alarm. He sent a memo to the entire intelligence community saying that he wanted no effort spared in the “war” with Osama bin Laden. He took on the president’s closest advisers to agitate for a strike on a Qaeda base in Afghanistan.

The disturbing thing was that this all happened under President Bill Clinton. When George W. Bush won the White House, Mr. Tenet seems to have shifted his priorities. The C.I.A. chief suddenly seemed consumed with hanging on to his job (through such innovative antiterrorism measures as naming the C.I.A.’s Langley, Va., headquarters for Mr. Bush’s father).

The Bush team was so busy in 2001 trying to upend America’s global relationships according to a neo-conservative agenda that the then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, did not see any urgency in reports that Al Qaeda was determined to strike in the United States. Mr. Tenet later helped hype the “slam dunk” intelligence that Mr. Bush used to justify diverting the military from the war of necessity against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to the war of choice in Iraq.

Another disturbing aspect of the report released on Tuesday was its date, June 2005, which neatly sums up Mr. Bush’s policies on transparency and accountability — he doesn’t believe in either. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the report wasn’t released in 2005. Mr. Bush had just given Mr. Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his “pivotal” role in fighting Al Qaeda.

But it’s distressing that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, still says that he would not have released the report if the Democratic-led Congress had not required it. Like his predecessor, Porter Goss, who also quashed the report, General Hayden does not seem to have much confidence in the American people. “It will, at a minimum, consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed,” he said, adding that the inspector general’s office cannot do its work unless it is hush-hush.

We could not disagree more. The recommendations of the inspector general were tepid — a panel should decide whether senior leaders should be called to account on relatively narrow issues — and the administration has already refused to comply. But more broadly, the obsession with secrecy and refusal to accept public scrutiny have made a tragic mess of national security policy.

Americans still don’t have the full story of how Mr. Bush hustled them into a war in which United States soldiers are trapped without hope of victory. Congress has rushed to pass profoundly dangerous changes to the constitutional fabric — the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, recent changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — without real deliberation.

The good news is that Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, now runs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he forced the release of this report. He also is pushing the committee to finally finish its investigation into the creation of the myth of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

This is not about plowing old ground. Ignoring the mistakes of the past dooms a nation to repeat them. Just look at the comparison Mr. Bush drew yesterday between Iraq and Vietnam. The only lesson he found in the nation’s last foreign quagmire of a war was that it ended too quickly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/op...23thu1.html?hp





E-Voting Predicament: Not-So-Secret Ballots
Declan McCullagh

Ohio's method of conducting elections with electronic voting machines appears to have created a true privacy nightmare for state residents: revealing who voted for which candidates.

Two Ohio activists have discovered that e-voting machines made by Election Systems and Software and used across the country produce time-stamped paper trails that permit the reconstruction of an election's results--including allowing voter names to be matched to their actual votes.

Making a secret ballot less secret, of course, could permit vote selling and allow interest groups or family members to exert undue pressure on Ohio residents to vote a certain way. It's an especially pointed concern in Ohio, a traditional swing state in presidential elections that awarded George Bush a narrow victory over John Kerry three years ago.

Ohio law permits anyone to walk into a county election office and obtain two crucial documents: a list of voters in the order they voted, and a time-stamped list of the actual votes. "We simply take the two pieces of paper together, merge them, and then we have which voter voted and in which way," said James Moyer, a longtime privacy activist and poll worker who lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Once the two documents are merged, it's easy enough to say that the first voter who signed in is very likely going to be responsible for the first vote cast, and so on.

"I think it's a serious compromise," said David Dill, a Stanford University computer science professor who has followed electronic voting issues closely. "We have a system that's very much based on secret ballots. If you have something where voters are involuntarily revealing their votes, it's a very bad practice."

Moyer and fellow activist Jim Cropcho tested this by dropping by the election office of Delaware County, about 20 miles north of Columbus, and reviewing the results for a May 2006 vote to extend a property tax to fund mental retardation services. Their results indicate who voted "yes" and who voted "no"--and show that local couples (the Bennets, for instance) didn't always see eye-to-eye on the tax.

Patrick Gallaway, communications director for Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, said on Friday that his boss had already been planning to begin a "comprehensive" review of e-voting machines as part of a campaign pledge she made before taking office in January. He said the review now is likely to include a look at the ES&S voter privacy concern as well.

ES&S machines are used in about 38 states, according to the Election Reform Information Project, created by the Pew Center on the States. Of those states, Arkanasas, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia are among those using ES&S iVotronic machines with paper audit trails.

Other suppliers of electronic voting machines say they do not include time stamps in their products that provide voter-verified paper audit trails. Sequoia Voting Systems and Hart Intercivic both said they don't. A spokesman for Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions), said they don't for security and privacy reasons: "We're very sensitive to the integrity of the process."

An ES&S spokeswoman at the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm downplayed concerns about vote linking. "It's very difficult to make a direct correlation between the order of the sign-in and the timestamp in the unit," said Jill Friedman-Wilson. (ES&S iVotronic machines are used in 10 Ohio counties, mostly in the center of the state, according to a map on the BlackBoxVoting.org watchdog site.)

"That is so fatally flawed," Friedman-Wilson said about Moyer's and Cropcho's analysis. "It doesn't take into consideration any of the times that there would be interaction with a voter and a poll worker before the ballot is activated." As for the interaction of Ohio open records law with ES&S logs, she said that "it is most appropriate that the secretary of state's office and others who are responsible for carrying out elections respond to questions regarding Ohio election law and procedure."

Timestamps + Ohio law = trouble

One explanation is ES&S had never expected that the paper with the time stamps, known as a voter verified paper audit trail, or VVPAT, would be made public under state open records laws.

A report evaluating ES&S security prepared by Compuware auditors two years for the Ohio secretary of state--marked "Confidential" but available on the Internet (PDF)--does warn about keeping electronic time stamps. It says that the electronic representation of votes, called the Cast Vote Records, "should not have time stamp associated with it" and must be randomized to protect privacy.

But the auditors viewed timestamps on the physical printout, called the audit log, as needed to detect "tampering" with the ES&S iVotronic hardware. "All actions to the iVotronic are recorded in the audit log with a time stamp," the report said. "This includes opening and closing the polls, voting, inserting invalid voting cards, loss of power, and supervisor access."

David Wagner, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, said electronic storage of votes in the order that voters cast them is a recurring problem with e-voting machines.

"This summer I learned that Diebold's AV-TSX touchscreen voting machine stores a time stamp showing the time which each vote was cast--down to the millisecond--along with the electronic record of that vote," Wagner said in an e-mail message. "In particular, we discovered this as part of the California top-to-bottom review and reported it in our public report on the Diebold voting system. However, I had no idea that this kind of information was available to the public as a public record."

The July 20 report on Diebold, written by Wagner and five Princeton University researchers for the California secretary of state, cites the electronic time stamp as a voting privacy concern. "If the time when each voter checks in is recorded in the poll log book, an attacker with access to the log book could correlate this data with the timestamps to determine how voters voted," the report says. "Alternatively, observers in the polling place could note the time when target voters cast their votes and find the corresponding vote records in the ballot results file."

Ohio law allows just this. Section 3501.13 of state law says "the records of the board and papers and books filed in its office are public records and open to inspection." Anyone who interferes with the public's right to inspect the records, in fact, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Of course, the correlation may not be perfect. If Voter No. 1 signs in but gives his space in line to Voter No. 2 who's in a hurry, a reconstruction of the votes based on public records will incorrectly identify their votes.

Having multiple machines and multiple lines can also create a randomization effect, but Moyer says that in his experience as a poll worker there's only one line that feeds into multiple machines. In addition, he says, poll workers log the voter into the ES&S iVotronic, which starts the time-stamped entries and means there's no additional randomization of voters taking different amounts of time to start the process.

A uniquely Ohio problem?
Even though other states do use the ES&S iVotronic paper trails, they don't necessarily make them available for public perusal.

Natasha Naragon, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas secretary of state, said she knew of no way to disable the time stamps on the voting machines' printed output. But, she said, "our law does not allow for public access to our voted ballots" and said they remain sealed unless there's a recount.

Iowa's procedures seem designed precisely to avoid the Ohio situation. "Iowa has an administrative rule, because the paper trail is in voter sequence, that prohibits providing to any of the bodies that have access to the paper rolls any information that would allow them to link individual ballots on paper roll to the voters," said Sandy Steinbach, the state's director of elections.

Computer scientists and security experts say restricting the public's access to e-voting paper trails by tinkering with open records laws is insufficient--it doesn't protect against, for instance, an insider perusing the ballots and reconstructing them.

They do say paper trails are necessary to provide a physical check on what could be a buggy or maliciously programmed machine. But they offer three suggestions: deleting the time stamp, not keeping a list showing in which order people vote, and adding a paper slicer and shuffler to randomize how the physical audit trail is recorded.

Lorrie Cranor, director of the Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, says that "you need to have mixing either in the recording of the orders of the voters or the votes, or preferably both."

"Audit trails are really important, but so is privacy," she said. "Many of the vendors of (e-voting machines) have actually put ID numbers on the paper records, which also could be used to reconstruct which voter is associated with a vote."

Moyer and Cropcho have posted a summary of their findings on their Web site, ThePublicBallot.org.

For its part, ES&S claims that printing out time stamps is recommended by standards adopted in 2002 by the Federal Election Commission.

ES&S spokeswoman Friedman-Wilson pointed to two sections of the standards, one of which says "all audit record entries shall include the time-and-date stamp." The other says error messages, critical system status messages, and a record of a voter "activating and casting each ballot" should be part of the audit log. (It does not, however, explicitly mandate that the outcome of the vote be printed.)

"Because the voter verifiable paper audit trail is one element of the audit function of a voting unit, one could interpret these guidelines as requiring the time stamp have citations within the guidelines," Friedman-Wilson said in an e-mail message.

Johnnie McLean, the deputy director of the North Carolina Board of Elections, said: "Our public records laws don't include that paper record. A voted ballot is considered confidential." In West Virginia, secretary of state spokesman Ben Beakes said: "There would be no way to match the time with the voter because in our poll book system, all you would find is an alphabetical list of the people they voted, not the time they came into the polling place."

Ohio, by contrast, may be unique. "It's my understanding from our legal staff that a public document consists of anything that is in the public domain," said Gallaway, the secretary of state's communications director. "I think that both of those (the time-ordered poll books and the time-stamped paper trail) would be considered that."

That has left computer scientists, already alarmed about the security of e-voting machines, dismayed at the interaction between time stamps and Ohio laws. "Security and privacy and the integrity of the voting system depend not only on the technology, but also on the procedures and the combination of the two," said Stanford's Dill. "This is a case where the combination of technology and procedures are working together to create a privacy threat."

CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report
http://news.com.com/E-voting+predica...3-6203323.html





Gunman Who Shot Wallace Is to Be Freed
Brenda Goodman

Arthur Bremer, the gunman who tried to kill Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama as he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, will be released from prison this year, a Maryland prison official said Thursday.

In 1973, Mr. Bremer was sentenced to serve 53 years for shooting Mr. Wallace and wounding three others at a campaign stop in Laurel, Md. The bullet that lodged in Mr. Wallace’s spine paralyzed his legs, and he used a wheelchair until his death in 1998.

Mr. Bremer has served 35 years of his original sentence, and managed, through credits for good behavior and steady job performance as a prison clerk, to earn an earlier release date, said Ruth A. Ogle, a program manager at the Maryland Parole Commission.

“The computer says he has never had an infraction,” Ms. Ogle said. “Arthur apparently figured out how to stay out of trouble.”

Mr. Bremer is scheduled to be released from the Maryland Correctional Institute in Hagerstown on Dec. 16, but he may be out sooner as he continues to cut time off his sentence.

He will continue to be supervised by the Maryland Parole Commission until 2025, the maximum expiration of his sentence, and a special condition of his parole will be that he stay away from political figures and events.

“He can’t be around political candidates or any elected official,” Ms. Ogle said. “He can’t go to a rally, a public appearance, a political dinner, anything like that.”

In 1996, the commission denied Mr. Bremer’s application for parole, saying early release would mean “open hunting season” on politicians.

Mr. Bremer has said he had hoped to gain celebrity by assassinating President Richard M. Nixon, but settled for trying to kill Mr. Wallace instead.

While Mr. Bremer failed, he became an inspiration for the would-be assassin Travis Bickle in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver.” That film, in turn, is said to have inspired an attempt by John W. Hinckley Jr. on the life of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Mr. Hinkley said he was trying to show his love for Jodie Foster, one of the film’s stars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/us/24bremer.html





Howard Row Over Wikipedia Edits
BBC

Staff in the Australian prime minister's department have been accused of editing potentially damaging entries in online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

Workers made 126 edits on subjects such as immigration policy and Treasurer Peter Costello, a local daily said.

The details came from a new website that tracks those who make edits. Staff from the CIA and the BBC among others have also made changes, it has shown.

A spokesman for PM John Howard said he had not asked staff to edit Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is an internet-based free encyclopaedia that anyone can add to or make changes to.

Defence Department

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, a worker in Mr Howard's department added the word "allegedly" to the assertion that immigration detainees were subject to inhumane conditions.

Changes were also made to the online profile of Peter Costello, Mr Howard's deputy and treasurer. A derogatory nickname - Captain Smirk - was removed.

A link was also added to a section on the children overboard affair of 2001.

The government had claimed that a group of asylum seekers had thrown their children into the sea to ensure they were rescued by the Australian navy - something later disproved by a Senate inquiry.

An employee added a link highlighting a Senate report which criticised a former government adviser who had claimed that Mr Howard misled the Australian public over the affair.

The new website, Wikipedia Scanner, also identified computers at Australia's Defence Department as being behind more than 5,000 changes to the site, the daily said.

Although many of the edits were factual or unrelated to the government, the department said on Friday that it had acted to block staff from editing the site.

"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a spokesman said.

Australia's opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd said it was legitimate for staff to make changes of a factual nature, but that it was wrong for public servants to re-edit history.

Wikipedia Scanner cannot pinpoint individual editors, but it can identify the organisation whose computer network was used to make the change.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ic/6961575.stm





Rudd Admits to US Strip Club Visit
Glenn Milne

OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd has admitted visiting a New York strip club during a drunken night while representing Australia at the United Nations.

Mr Rudd yesterday issued a statement to The Sunday Telegraph, confirming he went to the club.

But he said he could not recall what happened at the night spot because he had "had too much to drink".

"If my behaviour caused any offence to anybody whatsoever that evening, I of course wholeheartedly apologise," he said.

Mr Rudd went to the Manhattan "gentlemen's club" Scores in September, 2003, when he was Shadow foreign affairs minister.

Bipartisan observer

He was in New York at taxpayers' expense as a bipartisan observer at the UN.

Mr Rudd went to the club, which is a well-known haunt of UN diplomats and journalists, with New York Post editor Col Allan and Northern Territory Labor MP Warren Snowdon.

Discussions about Mr Rudd's actions have been current in diplomatic and political circles for some time.

But last week a Canberra-based source approached The Sunday Telegraph and confirmed accounts of the evening.

A 'perfect gentleman'

Mr Allan (an employee of News Corporation, parent company of the publisher of NEWS.com.au) then confirmed he and the Opposition Leader had been to a "gentlemen's club".

"Yes, we went out for a drink," Mr Allan said.

"Yes, it was at a gentleman's club and he (Mr Rudd) behaved like a perfect gentleman."

Confronted with the revelations yesterday, Mr Rudd said he recalled attending a dinner with Mr Allan and Mr Snowdon in New York in 2003.

"After dinner, Mr Allan suggested to Mr Snowdon and I that we all go on for a drink. Mr Snowdon and I agreed," he said.

"By that stage, I had had too much to drink.

"With the benefit of hindsight, I should not have gone on for a further drink.

"Not withstanding the fact that I had had too much to drink, I have no recollection (nor does Mr Snowdon) of any incident occurring at the nightclub - or of being asked to leave.

"It is our recollection that we left within about an hour."

'Warned against touching dancers'

But, according to some sources, Mr Rudd was warned against touching the dancers by Scores management.

Reports of Mr Rudd's behaviour reached senior Australian diplomats serving in the US at the time.

One of those diplomats, who insisted on anonymity, confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph a version of events involving "inappropriate behaviour".

It is understood that Mr Rudd and Mr Snowdon complied with the management directive.

"I have never been informed of any report of these events to any Australian diplomat," Mr Rudd wrote.

"I would have thought given the time that has elapsed since then that I would have been informed or the matter made public as it would have been in the possession of the Government.

Admission to wife

"At the time, I raised these matters with my wife Therese and the circumstances surrounding them.

"I indicated to Therese that it would have been far better for me to have simply returned to my hotel after dinner.

"I have never claimed to be perfect but I make no excuses.

"I take full responsibility for my actions."

Mr Rudd said he has met with Mr Allan in New York on at least three occasions.

The trip, which cost taxpayers $18,000, was conducted under the auspices of the Parliamentary Entitlements Act.

Under this Act, the Prime Minister gives specific permission for the visit to proceed and the recipient is formally regarded as representing Australia whilst overseas.

At the time of publication, Mr Snowdon had not returned The Sunday Telegraph's calls.
http://www.news.com.au/sundaytelegra...001028,00.html





Australian Author Threatened Over Japan Royals Book

The Australian author of a controversial book on Japan's Crown Princess Masako said on Tuesday he had received death threats, ahead of the book's Japanese-language release this week.

The Japanese government has said that the original version of Ben Hills' "Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne" was an insult to the royal family and had sought an apology from him.

A Tokyo-based publisher will release the Japanese version of the book on Wednesday, months after another publisher's plans for a translation were scrapped, prompting Hills to complain that Tokyo had censored his work.

Hills said he had received several anonymous e-mails in the run-up to the translation's publication.

"'Die white pork' was one of them," he told Reuters by telephone. "Of course I feel threatened. I'm not very amused."

Hills said in the book -- which he has described as "an Oriental Charles and Diana story" -- that 43-year-old Masako, a Harvard-educated former diplomat, was suffering from severe depression, not a mild "adjustment disorder" as described by the Imperial Household Agency, which manages royal affairs.

Masako has been largely out of the public eye in recent years due to a stress-related mental illness which palace watchers say was caused by the pressures of adapting to rigid royal life, including pressure to bear a male heir.

Masako and Naruhito have one daughter, 5-year-old Princess Aiko, who cannot ascend the throne under the current males-only succession law.

Japan's Foreign Ministry sought an apology and "appropriate steps" from Hills regarding the book in February, but did not comment at the time on aspects such as his assertion that Princess Aiko may have been conceived through in vitro fertilization.

Kyodo news agency said the Japanese edition's publisher had also been threatened by an ultra-nationalist group to stop the publication.

Hills said publishing the book in Japanese was a matter of freedom of speech.

"I'm very happy that it's being published in Japanese because I think that it doesn't matter whether the Japanese people like it or don't like it," he said.

"What matters is that they should have the chance to read it and judge for themselves."
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/...ss-author.html





Book Chief: Conservatives Want Slogans
Alan Fram

Liberals read more books than conservatives. The head of the book publishing industry's trade group says she knows why _ and there's little flattering about conservative readers in her explanation.

"The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,'" Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress' most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.

She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion."

The book publishing industry is predominantly liberal, though conservative books by authors like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and pundit Ann Coulter have been best sellers in recent years. Overall, book sales have been flat as publishers seek to woo readers lured away by the Internet, movies and television.

Rove, President Bush's departing political adviser, is known as a prodigious reader. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Schroeder was "confusing volume with quality" with her remarks.

"Obfuscation usually requires a lot more words than if you simply focus on fundamental principles, so I'm not at all surprised by the loquaciousness of liberals," he said.

"As head of a book publishing association, she probably shouldn't malign any readers," said Mary Matalin, a GOP strategist who oversees a line of books by conservative authors, Threshold, at Simon & Schuster, the publishing arm of CBS Corp. Matalin said conservatives and others aren't necessarily reading less, but are getting more information online and from magazines.

The AP-Ipsos poll found 22 percent of liberals and moderates said they had not read a book within the past year, compared with 34 percent of conservatives.

Among those who had read at least one book, liberals typically read nine books in the year, with half reading more than that and half less. Conservatives typically read eight, moderates five.

By slightly wider margins, Democrats tended to read more books than Republicans and independents. There were no differences by political party in the percentage of those who said they had not read at least one book.

The poll involved telephone interviews with 1,003 adults and was conducted August 6 to 8. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

___

AP Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5071902.html





Vintage Bradbury, Packaged Anew
David Shaftel

Though slowed by age, Ray Bradbury still speaks with exuberance. Hobbled by a stroke in 1999, he now dictates his work over the phone to his daughter in Arizona, who records and transcribes it before faxing edits back. Mr. Bradbury works in an overstuffed leather chair in a den lined by shelves of VHS tapes of classic movies and history texts. The room is crowded with models of dinosaurs, rocket ships and Jules Verne’s Nautilus submarine, his own dusty Emmy, a friend’s tarnished Oscar and a 52-inch flat-screen television not unlike the ones he presaged in “Fahrenheit 451.”

“I’m surrounded by my metaphors,” said Mr. Bradbury, who acknowledges that the science in his books is often faulty and serves only as a vehicle for his fiction. He’ll provide the inspiration, he says, and let the scientists worry about the particulars.

“The arts and sciences are connected,” he continued. “Scientists have to have a metaphor. All scientists start with imagination.”

As Ray Bradbury turns 87 on Aug. 22, the celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer is taking something of a victory lap, partly the result of mining his extensive files for rare and unfinished work. He will publish several long-forgotten works this summer, including experimental drafts and his earliest writings.

In September William Morrow will release “Now and Forever,” a collection of the never-released novellas “Leviathan ’99” and “Somewhere a Band Is Playing,” with an expanded, limited edition of the latter to be simultaneously released by an independent publisher. This caps a year in which Mr. Bradbury was awarded a special distinguished-career citation from the Pulitzer Board.

“Leviathan ’99,” which Mr. Bradbury describes as “ ‘Moby-Dick’ in outer space,” was started in the ’50s, and though he has revisited it sporadically over the years, it was originally intended as a radio script for Norman Corwin. It follows Ishmael Jones as he accompanies a blind, maniacal captain of the “largest interstellar spaceship ever built,” tracking a great white comet.

Mr. Bradbury intended “Somewhere a Band Is Playing” as a starring vehicle for Katharine Hepburn when he began it in 1956. In this novella, a reporter hops off a moving train, landing in a bucolic town where no one dies or grows old and where no children live.

“Somewhere a Band Is Playing” is vintage Bradbury, said Barry Hoffman, publisher of Gauntlet Press, which is releasing the novella accompanied by early drafts and fragments of a teleplay and screenplay.

“This is something that Bradbury’s been working on for more than 50 years, so we have a lot of variations that he played around with,” Mr. Hoffman said. Some versions are “more pessimistic” than the final draft, he said.

This summer Gauntlet released “Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ ” containing the stories, drafts and correspondence that culminated in what is perhaps Mr. Bradbury’s most enduring work.

Mr. Bradbury says he started “Somewhere a Band Is Playing” after seeing Ms. Hepburn in “Summertime.” “Over the years I kept working on it because I knew Katharine Hepburn, and I hoped I could finish it and give it to her, so that she could make a film of it,” he said during a recent interview in his home in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. “But the years just went by.”

Mr. Bradbury’s literary journey started with the fanzine Futuria Fantasia, which he self-published when he was 18 in 1939. The fanzine’s four issues were anthologized and reissued last month by Graham Press. The fanzine was bankrolled by Forrest J. Ackerman, one of science fiction’s greatest fans and the man said to have coined the term sci-fi; only 100 original copies were printed. They contain early work by such future science fiction luminaries as Hannes Bok and Robert Heinlein.

Mr. Bradbury concedes that his own stories in Futuria Fantasia — many of them published under pseudonyms, to make his stable of writers seem bigger — were crude. “I was still years away from writing my first good short story,” he said, “but I could see my future. I knew where I wanted to go.”

Mr. Bradbury’s authorized biographer, Sam Weller, said: “Futuria Fantasia has always been out of everybody’s grasp. Except for the very well-off fans who could afford to track copies down through collection or auction houses, nobody has ever seen them, let alone owned them.”

Though Mr. Bradbury’s critics have bristled at his comments that “Fahrenheit 451” was not a novel about censorship — a statement that the paper trail in “Match to Flame” seems to disprove — or that “The Martian Chronicles,” one of the most widely read science fiction novels, is not science fiction because of its fudged science, they agree on his contribution to the genre.

Mr. Bradbury’s special Pulitzer citation was “an enormous nod of respect from the mainstream media,” said Lou Anders, editorial director of the science fiction and fantasy imprint Pyr.

But Mr. Bradbury’s early works should be understood in their historical context, Mr. Anders said, not as representative of where the field is today. “I hope that anyone who comes to science fiction and fantasy cold — readers for whom ‘The Illustrated Man’ or ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ are their doorway in — will be inspired to look beyond these classic works to the new masters.”

Mr. Bradbury, who stopped the regular reading of science fiction decades ago, is comfortable in his outsider status, if a bit cantankerous. “I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention,” he said. “I never question. I never ask anyone else’s opinion. They don’t count.”
http://nytimes.com/2007/08/22/books/22brad.html?8dpc





PZ Being Sued by “Crackpot”

There comes a time in every debunker’s life when they are threatened with a lawsuit. It’s the bar mitzvah of skepticism.

The story is generally the same. Skeptic writes an article debunking some form of nonsense, author of said nonsense gets a bee in their bonnet (the archaic form of "wild hair up their butt"), said author says they will sue the skeptic, said skeptic laughs it off.

I’ve had my share of emails and letters, generally ALL IN CAPS, saying that I am preventing some Earth-shattering result from coming to fruition and keeping the author — who compares himself to Einstein, Galileo, and Newton — from getting what they deserve.

The irony is obvious: they are getting what they deserve: a logical spanking. And generally, that’s the end of it. The crank never follows through, and we’re done with it.

But this time it’s different. A guy by the name of Stuart Pivar has written a tome that says that genetic biologists have their profession all wrong, and that only he knows the truth. In a blog entry (and some followups) PZ Myers pointed out that the guy is clearly wrong. I am no biologist, but it only takes a glance to see that this guy is, um, maybe not terribly accurate.

PZ called him a crackpot, and perhaps that’s where the trouble lies. Pivar is suing PZ. Normally this can be shrugged off as just another goofball rattling the cage. Unfortunately, Pivar is a wealthy businessman, and can actually afford to follow through. Most times the cranks make threats, but can’t afford a lawyer, and even if they could, the lawsuits have no merit.

Nor does this one, in fact. Besides the use of that single term, PZ takes apart the science and lack thereof of Pivar’s book. There can be no libel if no lie is committed in an attempt to defame, and PZ told the truth. In a sense, this is just more cage-rattling, even if it goes to court. But a judge will quickly dismiss the case, I would imagine.

In fact, and I almost hate to say this, I rather hope (just a little) it does go to court. Most judges take a very dim view of frivolous lawsuits. It’s pretty cut and dry that PZ is innocent, and Pivar is trying to shut him down due to a negative review. If it goes to court, Pivar might be in for a lot more than he bargained for.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2...d-by-crackpot/





Five easy big ones

Her Journey, All True
Alan Feuer

“I’m hopeless at this stuff,” Laura Albert had been saying as she stood in her apartment on a recent morning, placing objects into — then removing them from — a bag. Ms. Albert, the fiction writer better known as JT LeRoy, is blessed with gifts, though not a talent for logistics. She was running late for a road trip to Los Angeles, and her driving party — a Cuban-Dutch designer, a would-be film director and a reporter for The New York Times — had been waiting patiently since 10 a.m. It would be after 3 when they finally left.

Part of the problem was Ms. Albert’s vulnerability to distraction (she had spent the morning in pajamas talking on the phone and fixing breakfast for her son), though it didn’t help that with her cup of Chinese tea she had taken a Provigil, a narcolepsy pill. It left her feeling fuzzy at the edges, she confessed. In the end it took her seven hours to prepare the bag, nearly as long as the trip would take itself.

In the last two years Laura Albert has lost, in no particular order, her livelihood, her boyfriend, a piece of her identity, quite possibly her apartment and a civil fraud trial in Manhattan this spring, enacted, more or less, because she signed a movie contract with her nom de plume.

That, of course, was JT LeRoy, who served for years as her literary double and imaginary envoy to the world. As bookish folks have known for almost two years JT (a supposed addict, androgyne and son of a West Virginia prostitute) rose to stardom at the end of the millennium then fell from grace, shot down as a hoax.

You can learn a lot about a person on an eight-hour road trip down California’s blue roads, and that holds true for Laura Albert, as complex a character as one is wont to meet. The drive, down Highway 101, was ostensibly conducted to get the reporter to an interview with David Milch, the television writer (and one of Ms. Albert’s best and last supporters). Yet like many highway journeys through the state, it had a rather strange existence of its own.

Over 400 miles the trip turned out to be a dreamlike blend of Kerouac and Freud, a barnstorm through the Santa Lucia range, with tears, antics, confessional moments and crab-meat enchiladas. Ms. Albert wore a pageboy cap and a pendant of a typewriter dangling at her neck; the film director shared the driving with the Cuban-Dutch designer; the in-car snack food was abundant and carefully selected as organic. Ms. Albert’s crimson wig (brought for a photo shoot to be held at journey’s end) sat atop a plastic-foam mannequin’s head, wedged amid the duffel bags in back. “I’m totally aware it sounds wacky,” Ms. Albert said somewhere south of Pismo Beach, “but I never really thought of it in terms of right or wrong, truth or lie. It was more like two computer programs running in my head. There was him, and there was me.”

These days there is only her, the all-consuming “him” having been replaced with lawyers’ bills and real-estate travails. At 41, Ms. Albert is bankrupt, crippled by her debts and living with a roommate and her young son, Trevor, in a San Francisco walk-up. Having been discovered, she no longer fears discovery; she fears herself. What now? Will there be more books? Without the shelter of a pseudonym, will she ever write again?

She still speaks frequently of JT LeRoy, though almost wistfully, like an old friend who is traveling abroad. He seems to reside these days in a distant corner of her psyche, still around but pushed into a corner by her landlord, her lawyer, her flabbergasted friends. She has moved away from her creation, but has not entirely moved on.

“There have to be people out there who see this little girl with her little problems for what it really is,” she said. “Call it a prank, a stunt, a hoax, whatever you want, but I feel I’m incidental to the process. The question now is, what are the ramifications down the road?”

The journalistic mind gets a little nervous hearing sentiments like this. After all Ms. Albert has veracity issues. Can she be trusted? What, in short, should be discarded? What believed?

Take, for instance, the following encounter in Atascadero, a cheerless town of bedding stores a few miles north of San Luis Obispo. The party stopped for coffee at a Starbucks and fell into a conversation with some gutter punks, pierced and dreadlocked, who were headed for Seattle. Might they have a ride?

They might, although the party’s car was headed south. And anyhow, Ms. Albert said, the police were on their tail. Or more precisely, the “po-po,” as she called them. The punks looked baffled and were clearly at a loss. After all, Ms. Albert, in her shades, might have been a late-day Bonnie Parker. Who could tell for sure? When they walked away, the film director, her longtime friend, shook his head and turned to hide a smile.

(On the night before the trip Ms. Albert, her son, her son’s friend and the reporter ducked into a taxi with the reporter’s luggage. The driver asked where they were from, and on the spot Ms. Albert told him she had just come in from New York City, fleeing a tornado that had ripped through town. She said the twister, which was real, had destroyed her home, which was not.)

The point is, what do you make of all of this? Pathology or provocation? Playful joke or a plain old-fashioned lie?

One somehow gets the sense with Laura Albert that it is all of these at once, that she is sometimes busting on the world yet just as often helpless in its midst. She has said that JT LeRoy was no financial ploy or literary trick but the “respirator” that permitted her to breathe. At the same time she acknowledges being well aware of the not-so-subtle subtext in the title of her last short-story collection: “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things.”

The one indisputable fact is that Ms. Albert is a picky passenger. She asked for air-conditioning and then complained when it got cold. She had the driver switch the music several times. All the while the calls kept coming in. (Her cellphone has the bwee-oop ring tone of a Star Trek communicator.) Bwee-oop: her sister in New York. Bwee-oop: the Chinese woman who cooks and cleans her home. Bwee-oop: someone calling to celebrate the criminal acquittal of a friend.

Of the few people, outside friends and family, to embrace this personality, the most supportive has been Mr. Milch, who met her on the set of “Deadwood,” his television show, just before her identity would be revealed. He has remained Ms. Albert’s friend and something like her guiding star.

On the outskirts of Los Angeles it was gradually revealed that the audience with Mr. Milch had a secondary purpose: Ms. Albert wanted an excuse to see the man herself.

Mr. Milch’s office squarely sits in the L.A. Modern style: plate glass, track lights, a former waiter answering the phones. He hugged Ms. Albert in the lobby, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, then looked at the reporter. Skeptically, it seemed, he shook his hand.

After small talk had determined the reporter was indeed a human being, a request was made to turn the tape recorder off — at which point the interview became an intervention.

Mr. Milch was stern.

Shut your mouth, he told Ms. Albert. Quit this sick behavior. Disengage. Forget the press. Go home. Be still. Get healthy. Raise your child. And pray that you can write.

He then reached in his pocket and gave Ms. Albert five crisp hundred-dollar bills.

She took the money, and she sat down on the couch. She closed her eyes, opened her mouth; she tried, it seemed, not bursting into tears.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/arts/23albert.html





Light ’Em if You Got ’Em
Liesl Schillinger

THESE THINGS AIN’T GONNA SMOKE THEMSELVES

By Emily Flake.

122 pp, Bloomsbury USA.

$12.95.

BURNING BOOK

By Jessica Bruder.

352 pp, Simon Spotlight Entertainment.

$28.95.

IF you are one of the million adult New Yorkers who smoke cigarettes (that is, the ones who admit to city health officials that they do), 100-degree heat can’t keep you from taking your midmorning, midafternoon, mid-late-afternoon (etc.) smoking breaks. What could be more refreshing on a sultry August day than to stick a burning brand in your mouth and inhale so deeply that you hear your lungs crackle?

In her slim and jaunty new graphic novella, “These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves,” the cartoonist Emily Flake riffs on her perverse, self-destructive habit for an audience of willful creative types like herself who know cigarettes are bad for them but can’t bear to join the ranks of safe, tedious noninhalers. “Deep down,” she writes, “I feel just a tinge of distrust for nonsmokers.” Besides, she points out: no cigarettes, no smoke break. “You can’t just go out there and breathe for 10 minutes. If you’re not smoking, it’s called ‘loitering.’ ”

Ms. Flake, the creator of the offbeat comic strip “Lulu Eightball,” which runs in a handful of alternative weeklies (there is also a “Lulu Eightball” book), has been smoking for more than a decade. She recently turned 30, prompting dark reflections on the folly of her guilty pleasure. Calling her book “Half valentine, half Dear John letter,” she enlists her deadpan sensibility and plump line drawings (accented in a chipper shade of red) to revisit the glory days of Old Gold, Camel and Viceroy, when “cigarettes weren’t bad for you” and to commemorate the high points of her addiction.

“Here’s a magical vice trifecta,” she writes, beneath illustrations of a glass of bourbon, a cutting board piled with prosciutto and a sleek ashtray holding a single smug cigarette. “Enjoy together and it’s like angels are throwing a party in your mouth.”

She also acknowledges the devils. “As I understand it, it also gives you cancer,” she concedes. Still, the diva in her dreads other smoking-induced evils more. “Lungs, schmungs, it’s the crow’s feet and Farrah Fawcett lines that put the fear of God into me,” she writes. So why hasn’t she quit? The real reason seems to be that, like the cartoon rebels from Li’l Jinx to Dennis the Menace, she just doesn’t feel like it.

WHILE some tempt fate by lighting up closer to home, others travel hundreds, even thousands, of miles to participate in Burning Man, the annual pyromaniac ritual in the Nevada desert.

These so-called “burners” roll in by the thousands on the last Monday in August to the parched wasteland known as the playa (in the Black Rock Desert, not far from Reno) to set up a tent city amid clouds of dust, around a multistory human effigy. After a week of revelry, nudity, dehydration, sunburn and art-making, the burners incinerate the towering man (while dodging falling chunks of flaming debris) and then depart, taking all traces of their “ephemeropolis” with them.

Commentators have called the spectacle the “Bonfire of the Inanities.”

In “Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man,” Jessica Bruder, a reporter for The Oregonian in Portland, presents lavish pictorial evidence of this organized explosion of the mass id. Her book may not answer the “Why?” of Burning Man, but it certainly answers the “What?” and “How?” Combining hundreds of photos (many taken by Ms. Bruder) of the place, the players, the props and the art with streamers of ecstatic text, “Burning Book” is a scrapbook for pinwheel-eyed firebugs who just may hook a new generation.

The ritual dates to 1986, Ms. Bruder writers, when a college dropout and landscape gardener named Larry Harvey set fire to an eight-foot wooden man on a San Francisco beach. It has since become a conflagration that draws 40,000 people and has a budget of more than $8.5 million. Burning Man is so well known that it has been discussed on “The View” and has a free simulcast on the Internet.

So what is it like? The photos give a taste of the phantasmagoria: motorized giant cupcakes zooming across gray dust; a fiendishly grinning man wearing nothing but scarlet body paint, a codpiece and a watermelon headdress; human-scale games of Mousetrap and chess (on a glow-in-the dark neon board); and many, many naked people who look like they need a bath ... but don’t feel like it.

“People describe the scene as a confusing kaleidoscope of references,” Ms. Bruder writes. “Something like: Burning Man is Fellini directing ‘Alice in Wonderland’ on the set of ‘Mad Max’ in one of Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities,’ with props by Duchamp and Dalí, secondhand costumes from Barbarella, the Beatles, and Ringling Bros., casting by Hieronymus Bosch, and a planned premiere on Tatooine.”

More helpfully, she clarifies, “It’s an elaborate way of saying, ‘Man, you had to be there!’ that takes ten times as long.”

Before you take the plunge, know that Burning Man is an expensive habit ($200 to $300 for admission) and that, with the blazing sun, falling embers and erratic revelers, the experience is considered so dangerous that tickets come printed with a warning that by attending: “You voluntarily assume the risk of serious injury or death.”

Put that on a pack of Camels.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/fashion/19books.html

















Until next week,

- js.



















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