Congress to the rescue for Internet radio

And now we come to the zenith of my blogging career - two of my very favorite topics collide: politics and radio. Tell your senators and representatives that you support the Internet Radio Equality Act.

From FMQB:

Congress has gotten involved in the ongoing fight to raise royalty rates for Internet broadcasters. Congressmen Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Don Manzullo (R-IL) have introduced the Internet Radio Equality Act, in an attempt to stop the Copyright Royalty Board's decision to increase the rates. The legislation is said to "modernize" the copyright rules, putting royalties paid by public broadcasters of "sound recordings" under the same system as "musical works."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, CRB!

Link via [FMQB]

"One signature away"

It is amazing how some people can take something that is widely viewed as a negative, spin it around, and have it come back out sounding like the best thing in the world:

“We are one signature away from ending the Iraq War. President Bush must listen to the will of the American people and sign this bill so that our troops can come home.”...
“All of us have been touched by the heroic sacrifices troops have made in service to our country. With the stroke of a pen, President Bush can bring them home to the families who love them and to a country ready to give honor them for their service.” -- Barack Obama

If that doesn't take your breath away, I don't know what will. Thinking back on four long years of this war and what it's done to not just this country but the whole world, thinking about how much longer it has the potential to drag on and on, and then stopping to consider that, yes, one little scribble of ink now has the power to bring it to a close -- that is some perspective for you right there.

Unfortunately, we'll all come crashing back to reality when this ends up getting vetoed anyway. It was nice to get just a taste of this in the meantime, however. And we will be coming back for seconds.

Link via [TPM Cafe]

Hokies, Part 1

I've made a deliberate point to not post about the Virginia Tech Massacre up till now, specifically because I would like to gather my thoughts first and see what else is being said before I join the chorus myself. I have been transfixed by this story since it started, and at times this week I've not felt like myself because of it. However, I just read this post relating a first-hand account of the shooting spree in Norris Hall and I had to pass it on. It is the most arresting version of the story I've read yet:

Gil's Story

It was about 9pm on April 16th, and Gil, Nell-Marie, Ellen and myself were in the hospital room in Roanoke. Gil said, “Can I have a tissue…there’s blood inside my nose.” We got him one, and as he cleaned the dried blood from inside his nose he said…”It’s not my blood…it’s from the guy who was on top of me….his blood was everywhere…on my face, in my eyes, my nose, my mouth…it was all over.” He said that the reason he was not killed must have been “all that blood” that covered him. “He must have thought that I was already dead”. It was the blood of the Indonesian student who had been seated beside Gil when it all started.

Almost 12 hours to the minute before Gil asked for the tissue that night, the carnage began. It was Monday morning, April 16th, about 9:20 am, when Gil, the Professor, and 13 other graduate students were interrupted, (the class began at 9am) by someone who opened the wooden classroom (about 20’ by 30’ in size) door and took up a “shooters” stance at the front of the room and began firing his semi-automatic 9mm pistol directly at students on the front row. He moved from his left to his right. Gil sat on the last chair in the front row, on the shooter’s right.

CRB set to kill net radio dead

I've mentioned this twice before, and today there's a new shitty update:

Internet radio broadcasters were dealt another blow late Monday, when the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board upheld its decision to raise the level of royalty fees. The suggested new rates could potentially be high enough to put the majority of Webcasters out of business, though the CRB said that the appeals filed had not "made a sufficient showing of new evidence or clear error or manifest injustice that would warrant rehearing."

Also in the CRB ruling, the board opted not to postpone the May 15 deadline that would begin the new rates. It also clarified how royalties would be calculated for 2006 and 2007, allowing the use of estimated ATH (Aggregate Tuning Hours), but just as a "transitional period." The board also noted that the new rates would also apply to music streaming onto mobile devices.

There you have it, folks. Unless something is done to change this at the last minute, May 15th is the day you'll likely hear thousands of internet radio streams go off the air.

In an encouraging sign, a new group has popped up to fight this. I am joining to help and I hope that you will, too:

On the other hand, the new coalition SaveNetRadio has launched www.SaveNetRadio.org, which is made up of representatives from Live365, Pandora and other online broadcasters. Spokesperson Jake Webb said in a statement, "The CRB's ill informed decision to increase royalty fees to this unjustifiable level will quite simply bankrupt most Webcasters and destroy Internet radio. Radio on the Internet is not a passing fad or for a niche audience. It is an enormously popular medium that offers unprecedented diversity for its more than 70 million listeners and for artists. Particularly for independent artists, Internet radio has the ability to reach millions of fans across the country who would otherwise never hear their music. Net radio has changed the way people listen to, buy, promote and market music and we cannot afford to let it die."

Link via [FMQB]

Ruh roh

From the New York Times:

In a retrieval once thought unattainable, scientists have recovered and identified proteins in a bone of a well-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex that lived and died and was fossilized 68 million years ago.

Of course you all know what comes next, right?

I don't fucking think so

Site is too busy right now, but Citizens for Ethics is reporting that the White House has "lost" FIVE MILLION emails over a two-year period. This, of course, in relation to the USA firing scandal that I mentioned two weeks ago would go away in two week's time if they would just cooperate with the investigation and let the news cycle run it's course.

This is like getting pulled over for speeding and then as soon as the officer comes up to your window you blurt out something stupid like "DON'TLOOKINTHETRUNK!" and then of course the trooper looks in your trunk and you have a corpse in there. Just play it cool and take the ticket, and then you can go home and hide that dead stripper in your basement where she belongs.

And, of course, those five million emails weren't just "lost". They're like nude pictures, in that once they're out on the Internet they're out there forever. In fact, some of the emails may actually include nude photos, or perhaps photos of dead strippers locked in a car trunk -- either one of which would really bring these analogies to life.

Devil made me say it

Check out this from Atrios:

This morning on CNN Howard Kurtz pulled the "what about the rappers! that's where the word ho comes from!" stunt. What this has to do with Don Imus calling the Rutgers Women's Basketball team whores for no apparent reason other than the crime of being mostly black I do not know. In any case, we're seeing a pretty quick creep of this collective responsibility thing. Because many of the women are black, and rap is a black thing, and some rappers use the word "ho," it's absurd to focus on Don Imus calling these women a bunch of whores without pointing out that other people have used the word ho in other contexts. Or something. I really can't follow the logic.

The thing I really don't get about this Imus thing is the mad rush by people to come and defend this guy. We've heard some dumb shit from people trying to explain away these comments, but using this "he wasn't the first to say it" defense is some weak sauce. For some reason, people aren't distancing themselves from Imus like ESPN did from Rush Limbaugh, or like the cast of Seinfeld did from Kramer. What is it about Don Imus that makes people feel he should get different treatment from those lepers?

Let me, then, contradict myself somewhat by saying that Imus should not be fired primarily for the racial insensitivity of his comments. Don Imus ought to be out of a job because, as a steward of the airwaves, it's irresponsible and kind of dangerous to be making personal attacks on the air. Although it's not illegal after the corollary to the Fairness Doctrine expired, it's an abuse of the power of the mic. The Rutgers women's team can't simply respond in kind with their own broadcast or by calling a press conference -- and now they've been slandered for pretty much no good reason and with no ethical means of protest available to them.

This kind of one-sided fight is why we shouldn't be talking about what Imus said so much as how he said it. Here we are bickering over the words that left his mouth instead of talking about how he even got close to a microphone with those words in the first place.

Links via [Eschaton] [Dick Polman] [Crooks and Liars]

Good news, everyone!

I got some unexpected good news last night that had me jumping around like a maniac and hollering my durn fool head off or something. I'm bracing for Friday, when I'll hopefully get some more (expected) good news. Unfortunately, I won't tell you anything about either announcement until I'm good and ready. Right now, let's just say that I'm more excited now than I have been in months, because I've got one, and maybe two, of the things I've been wanting for a while coming to me very soon.

How mysterious. You'll know soon. In other news, I suck at posting lately and I will get back on top of things soon. Between the Attorney General scandal and the Anna Nicole Smith business, it seems like we haven't had any new news to comment on in several weeks.