Humour: Dirty Talk: TV anchors use faggotry to mock Anti-Tax Tea Parties, says homo

In an article on Fox News reporting mistakenly that the coded obscenity played with at length by TV anchors and their guests in hatred against the Anti-Tax rallies, those expressions Fox Politics says originated in Frat Houses (implying the terms arose at the universities, not today's internet-porn version of "frat houses"). Actually, the tea-metaphor was used "humourously" for faggot-conversation in gay bars as long as forty years ago; the deed itself took place in "tea houses" (gay-sex bath houses), so I was led to believe. "Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor: Cable anchors and guests covered the anti-tax tea party protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references" (Apr16,2k9). Make that faggot-sexual references. And think consumption of the butch's urine by the nellie tea-drinker (different from a "Golden Shower" where the urine is not necessarily ingested). A number of websites viciously speak of "the Homosexual Agenda" and insultingly use homo as tho it were synonomous with "Gay," faggot, etc. Bullsh-t! It's dishonest to confuse the Gay Agenda (which is real) with simply being homo or even with wanting legal recognition of a 2woman or a 2man intimate union. But that's not marriage, in this homo's thawtful opinion. Anyway, here's the generally informative article from Fox:

For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children.

For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word "teabagging" in a sentence.

Teabagging, for those who don't live in a frat [or gay-sex bath] house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person's face or mouth.

So when the anti-tax "tea party" protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests -- who for weeks had all but ignored the story -- covered the protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed "teabagging" references with analyst David Gergen's more staid commentary on how Republicans are still "searching for their voice."

"It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face. [Gergen was Cooper's "straight man".]

MSNBC's David Shuster weaved a tapestry of "Animal House" humor Monday as he filled in for Countdown host Keith Olbermann.

The protests, he explained, amount to "Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it."

He described the parties as simultaneously "full-throated" and "toothless," and continued: "They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending." Shuster also noted how the protesters "whipped out" the demonstrations this past weekend. ...

Tea Party participants were not amused. The events were held in dozens of cities across the country, and while some demonstrators were criticized for wielding off-topic and sometimes insensitive protest signs, most took to the streets to speak out against government spending.

Dirty Humour, by Homo

Andy Cobban on YouTube

Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, said the media coverage was "insulting," reacting specifically to CNN reporter Susan Roesgen's combative interviews with Illinois demonstrators in which she declared that the protests were "anti-CNN" and supported by FOX News. She left the teabagging jokes to her colleagues, though.

"I've never seen anything like it," Bozell said. "The oral sex jokes on (CNN) and particularly MSNBC on teabagging ... they had them by the dozens. That's how insulting they were toward people who believe they're being taxed too highly."

Max Pappas, public policy vice president at FreedomWorks -- a small-government group which promoted the tea parties -- said it's a "shame" media outlets cracked jokes at a genuine "grassroots uprising."

"I think what that reveals is how worried they are that this might actually be something serious. You make fun of things you're afraid of, I'd say," Pappas said.

If anyone thinks the orally charged remarks on mainstream cable were just a coincidence, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's segments over the past week with guest, Air America's Ana Marie Cox, would dissolve all doubt. Their on-air gymnastics, dancing around the double entendre of the week, looked like live-action Beavis and Butthead.

By one count, the two of them used the word "teabag" more than 50 times on one show. And on Monday, Cox even let the viewers in on their joke -- referencing Urbandictionary.com, a site which offers a number of colorful definitions for the term "teabagging." [Not really, the term is hedged and "fratted" and insufficiently a urine analysis.]

"Well, there is a lot of love in teabagging," Cox said. "It is curious, though, as you point out, they do not use the verb 'teabag.' It might be because they're less enthusiastic about teabagging than some of the more corporate conservatives who seem to have taken to it quite easily."

Jenny Beth Martin, a Republican activist who helped organize one protest in Atlanta, said she's not too worried about the protests being dismissed by some media outlets. She estimated 750,000 people attended more than 800 protests in all 50 states, and that at the very least the local media and community newspapers documented it.

"Our message definitely got out where it needed to get," she said.

And what of those of us who went to no public assembly but had cups of Red Rose tea together in a kitchen or living room, watching the telecasts? Add a million.

On the other side, there was a mention of the Gay Tea Party in Boston Harbour. Now, there you m+t have seen some lowdown dirty "teabagging" of the metaphorical kind, because aggressive Gay agendistas promote public sex.

-- Homo Christian

Arts: Architecture: Top prize in discipline goes to Swiss, Peter Zumthor

Lawrence Pollard of the BBC reports "Swiss architect wins top honour" (Apr13,2k9):

The most prestigious award for architecture, the Pritzker Prize, has been awarded to ... Peter Zumthor [most of whose works are located in his home country of Switzerland].

The prize, worth $100,000, is given for a body of work across a career, and is mainly valued for the prestige and commissions it can bring.

Zumthor's works are found mainly in his native Switzerland, as well as elsewhere in Europe and the US.

His most famous commission is the thermal baths in Vals in France.

Architecture, by Archibald

Here an artist--who is not celebratarian, so to speak--is recognized for his craftsmanship and creativity. He was trained as a cabinet-maker and has attended to his interiors and materials with special care over some 30 years.

He says he doesn't ally himself to an ideology or school of architecture, but aims above all at creating an interior suited to place and use, simple principles aimed at producing human architecture.

One extraordinary recent building is a chapel built by wrapping concrete round a wigwam structure of tree trunks.

Zumthor then burnt away the trunks, leaving the imprint of the wood as the texture of the interior, which retains the smell of charred wood.

Congratulations to the artist and to the Prize judges. Refreshing!

Technics: Google wants to become a corporate Pontiff of Books

A projected "Book Rights Registry" (which seems more like a proprietary "Google Books registry") is being orchestrated to control the registration of books worldwide, the English-language books being my keenest zone of interest (even to the point of longterm interest in orthography, semiotics > calligraphy, text design, text/imagery interlacements, perhaps intertwined with English or another/s language, perhaps random or novel alphabets like the Owlbirdbet). I love homemade books deploying graphic-imagery skills and text, even on interpenetrating aesthetic levels, nuancing from level to level, row by row (the perichoretic aesthetics of Vollenhoven [see Kuyvenhoven on the role that a trinitarian aesthetics had in V's thawt, and, I would add, in Seerveld's).

It matters if Google even nominally controls the books registry.

Indeed, "a registry can tell you who owns the content you found," in the first place.

Indeed, the finder has feelings of aborginality in this matter: s/he found! It! Perhaps, a ramifying sense of almost-creation of the found something, even as intangible as an insite mayhaps it be. But in the coming computer-driven age (that age is still in its youth, I would say) everything becomes totally paperized digitally (to coin an oxymoronic expression of my own). The thawt I am embellishing, as it may be expressed more clearly by Chris Castle, in the UK tech mag The Register, traceable back to his original post in the Music and Media section, Dec31,2k8: Castle's report is well worth the delve.

"As such a dominant player in the online world, Google will now occupy a unique gateway position that, if abused, could easily create a de facto monopoly. A situation where competition is removed from the market place by placing the keys in the hands of one company cannot, ultimately, be good for the consumer. This is a bridge too far," the British Booksellers Association noted.

Technotes, by Technowlb

The Castle article, apparently quite a newsbreaking report, dissect the Gooogle project:

If a competitor tried building a competing book registry by negotiating licenses for in-copyright works, that competitor would have to bear the startup costs — and the cost of licensing. If the competitor is rewarded for respecting authors’ rights by obtaining favorable terms, that advantage can be taken away by Google. Why? Because one of Google’s goodies from its dominant position in the settlement negotiation is “most favored nations” price protection.

The registry is contractually required to offer Google any better terms it would give to anyone using any data or resources that Google provides the registry, or that is of the type that Google provides. So even if a competitor wants to build a parallel infrastructure from scratch, and wasn’t using any of Google’s data—any reward for their legitimacy would be trumped by Google’s MFN. There is no advantage in “doing it right” except a clear conscience—an MFN inhibits competition.

I love Google, I blog on Blogger--nowadays owned by Google. I avail myself of other Google services and features, free! But, dear Sirs and Madames, Messiers et Mesdames toutes che`res, please Google take a more neutral stance than "Most Favored Nation" (MFV).

There's a juridics angle too.

There's also the market pressures of competition. Castle asks rhetorically and then answers:

"How about Yahoo!’s Open Content Alliance? Google leads OCA in scanning [books, other textual materials], and then there’s Google’s MFN. Now that may be kind of interesting to regulators. As one commentator noted, "[a]s a condition of settlement approval, the Registry should be required to negotiate and sign an antitrust consent decree with the Department of Justice.” Since ASCAP and BMI each already operate under consent decrees, there is a predicate for Justice Department scrutiny and "rate court" oversight of the registry, particularly given Google's market domination. Why should societies have to suffer the rate court burden when Google does not?

For this blog-entry, we have to leave the matter somewhat dangling, as we watch for further developments.

Movies: A Christmas flick list--what's yours?

Michael Nielsen, writing in Ezine Articles, presents his "Top Ten Christmas Films of All Time" --

1. It's a Wonderful Life
2. A Christmas Story
3. A Christmas Carol (adopted from Charles Dickens)
4. Miracle on 34th Street
5. The Santa Clause
6. A Charlie Brown Christmas (animated)
7. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
8. Love Actually
9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
10. White Christmas

Nielsen supplements his main list with a few citations flicks that are more "classic, Disney, and animated":

Mickey's Christmas Carol
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Frosty the Snowman
Elf
Nighmare before Christmas
A Walt Disney Christmas

Nielsen's write-ups are rather supine, and he fails to give us his criteria of selection. But, as he notes, many people are trying to decide what they'll watch on TV or on DVD at home during the hastening season. He also notes that, even without a Christmas thematic, first-run movies in the theatres and newly-released DVDS of all worldviews and genres get attention from viewers and theatre-goers this time of year.

Arts: Fred Astaire, a consummate dancer of the Movie Age

There's a new book out, being a biography of Fred Astaire the dance work of whom, in the comic vein mostly, set a dance-aesthetics standard that still holds. His dances, a body of artistic work from one dance routine to the next in a given movie, and from film to film, these choreographic accomplishments remain somehow normative today because of old movies that still dazzle us with his showmanship. His work was slanted by the mass-communications medium of the cinematographic camera's angle. He danced to the camera's eye for the future ticket-purchasing audience of each movie, and often gently deconstructed himself in his role, larger than any role in a movie, as big as life. Leading male dancer in the early movies which were viewed in movie theatres, Fred Astaire is an entertainer par excellence; and he became a bon vivant.

A fine boildown of an important theme of Jason Epstein's new book, Fred Astaire (Yale University Press), was recently recently posted on the American Heritage website. Jason Epstein, "Like kissing your sister: the sibling partnership that launched Fred Astaire into stardom" (posted Oct28,2k8).

In noting how important Adele Astaire was, we underscore an axiom of dance aesthetics -- at least of the dancer business and profession -- that we have to say male dancer or female dancer when we indulge ourselves in ranking the stars of movie dance and dance movies. The instant I think of Astaire's female partners, once he got into the movies, it's Ginger Rodgers who stands out, to my mind. She played with Fred in several memorable storyline dance-movies (really a form of "musical," carried over the top by fancy footwork).

Technics: I just discovered Gmail's voice and video chat

It only works with Firefox 2.0, InternetExplorer 6.0 (ugh!), Safari 3.0+, and Google Chrome. It uses YouTube, and requires dowloading the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in

Voice and video chat plug-in info page for Gmail.

I haven't yet discovered the relationship to this Gmail v&v chat with the Applebased iChat.app.

Technotes, by Technowlb

I'm looking forward to gettingh this set up properly.

Technowlb

Technics: Web 2.0's downside opens way for spyware and other vulnerabilities via the Internet

Jason King is CEO of LavaSoft, a pioneer company that produces adware and software, labouring to chase down spyware, producing anti-virus services. Sheeraj Shah of Net-Square wrote a famous article "10 Web 2.0 Attack Vectors," putting forth something of an overall vector analysis on Help Net Security website, Oct9,2k6. You can visit them both at this Help Net Security website page.

First, let's have entrepreneur King speak to us for 2:50 minutes on video from YouTube:

LavaSoft and the antispyware industry

Sheeraj Shah explains how Web 2.0 advances have also opened vulnerabilities that hadn't existed before its arrival, not least of all the new vulnerability to spyware:

Web 2.0 is the novel term coined for new generation Web applications. start.com, Google maps, Writely and MySpace.com are a few examples. The shifting technological landscape is the driving force behind these Web 2.0 applications. On the one hand are Web services that are empowering server-side core technology components and on the other hand are AJAX and Rich Internet Application (RIA) clients that are enhancing client-end interfaces in the browser itself.

XML is making a significant impact at both presentation and transport (HTTP/HTTPS) layers. To some extent XML is replacing HTML at the presentation layer while SOAP is becoming the XML-based transport mechanism of choice.

Now, let's garner the points web-thinker Shah presents as headers, the result being a bit abstract for those, like me, who are still novices in these territories:

Web 2.0 security concerns are reshaping the whole industry of security-measures for websites, internet, and home computers.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Shah introduces his vector-theory of new web2.0 vulnerablities:

On the “server-side”, XML based Web services are replacing some of the key functionalities and providing distributed application access through Web services interfaces. These remote capabilities to invoke methods over GET, POST or SOAP from the Web browser itself provide new openings to applications. On other side, RIA frameworks running on XML, XUL, Flash, Applets and JavaScripts are adding new possible sets of vectors. RIA, AJAX and Web services are adding new dimensions to Web application security.

On the “server-side”, XML based Web services are replacing some of the key functionalities and providing distributed application access through Web services interfaces. These remote capabilities to invoke methods over GET, POST or SOAP from the Web browser itself provide new openings to applications.

On other side, RIA frameworks running on XML, XUL, Flash, Applets and JavaScripts are adding new possible sets of vectors. RIA, AJAX and Web services are adding new dimensions to Web application security.

So, here's his analytic list of 10 attack vectors, Shah providing us with a thick explanatory paragraph for each:

1. Cross-scripting in AJAX.
2. XML poisoning.
3. Malicious AJAX code execution.
4. RSS/Atom injection.
5. WSDL scanning and enumeration.
6. Client-side validation in AJAX routines.
7. Web-services routing issues.
8. Parameter manipulation with SOAP.
9. XPATH injection in SOAP message.
10. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) thick client binary manipulation.

Shah concludes:

AJAX, RIA and Web services are three important technological vectors for the WEB 2.0 application space. These technologies are promising and bring new equations to the table, empowering overall effectiveness and efficiency of Web applications. With these new technologies come new security issues, and ignoring them can lead to big disasters for the corporate world. [And what about us "end-user" consumers with our home computers?] In this article, the discussion was restricted to only ten attacks but there are several other attack vectors as well. Increased WEB 2.0 security awareness, secure coding practices and secure deployments offer the best defense against these new attack vectors.

Music: Digital downloads may drop DRM restrictions

The Distorted-Loop website carries a breathless up-to-the-minute
post by Jonny on what may be a price revolution for digitally-downloaded music, especially from iTunes Music Store. Not just that, but the entire Digital Rights Management (what newspeak the DRM expression is!) promises to unscrew and in the process unscrew us, truly a gain for weary consumers.

H+-level negotiations have been taking place in the present financial climate, where a Depression hangs over everything like a thick smog. Will the music industry go down, taking iTunes and confrères with it ...? Steve Jobs is reported to have lost billions in his stock portfolio already, and we may expect that many of the negotiators for the other companies involved have likewise undoubtedly "dropped a bundle."

Steve Jobs--recently lost 2.3 billions
Uploaded by Anaximaximumphotographics

Steve Jobs of Apple, tho he lost a fortune, is negotiating with the DRM kingpins of the digital music industry to ease the financial load on music lovers.
The photo appeared as #15 in the set "The Biggest Losers: 20 global moguls who have gotten creamed in the recent economic collapse"--the set accompanies the article of that title by Hilary Lewis, Nov26,2k8, Business Sheet (none of the photographers are mentioned).

Maybe the downturn has forced new thinking to jell in the fetid money-brains of the digital music industry. Suddenly, with Mr Jobs' leverage, perhaps the music tycoons and their customers may together benefit from this possible move.

The long-standing duel between Apple and three major labels, Universal, Warners and Sony BMG may be coming to an end, with tracks from these majors now showing up within the iTunes Plus music upgrade service.

There’s been strong rumours claiming negotiations between Apple and the labels to offer music at high quality free of restrictive DRM have intensified in recent weeks. Sony BMG is already thought to be uploading tracks to make available through iTunes Plus.

Overnight sundry spies have spotted tracks from the three hold-out majors popping up in the ‘Upgrade My Library’ section of iTunes, where users can upgrade their purchases from DRM’d to DRM-free tracks.

For example, Rakim’s rather special ‘The 18th Letter/The Book of Life’ is currently available to upgrade to iTunes Plus. The major label behind this release is, of course, Universal.

Music Biz, by AudioViz

iTunes Plus was introduced in April 2007 with DRM-free tracks from EMI. The catalogue later grew to include music from many independent labels. While songs cost slightly more, they ship in higher-quality 256k bitrates. You can upgrade existing purchases for 20-pence.

Apple’s move to offer its full catalogue in DRM-free format opens the doors for a level playing field in digital music, with services including Amazon MP3 in the US and 7digital in the UK already offering tracks free of DRM in MP3 format for sale at the same price as an ordinary iTunes track.

Open to question at time of writing is whether Apple will compete on price by lowering iTunes Plus track prices to match existing standard downloads, and whether the company will make a major announcement on its plans later today. (Customarily, watch for an announcement around 1.30pm, well, if an announcement is to be made at all).

** Well, the day’s moving on and no official news yet - we’ve dropped an enquiry to Apple, and their lack of a response suggests at present these moves belong in the official ‘rumour and speculation’ department, it may be helpful if readers have a check to see what songs/artists from the three majors they can dig out using the ‘Upgrade’ feature in iTunes, and note them here. Hang in there.

We owe Distorted-Loop'a Jonny a huge tip of the hat. (The underlines in the quoted text above are added by yours truly.)

Aesthetics: Citizens' architectural renewal of rundown historic Buffalo

Nicolai Ouroussoff writes charmingly, "Saving Buffalo’s Untold Beauty," Nov14,2k8, NYT:

One of the most cynical clichés in architecture is that poverty is good for preservation. The poor don’t bulldoze historic neighborhoods to make way for fancy new high-rises.

That assumption came to mind when I stepped off a plane here recently. Buffalo is home to some of the greatest American architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with major architects like Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright building marvels here. Together they shaped one of the grandest early visions of the democratic American city.

Yet Buffalo is more commonly identified with the crumbling infrastructure, abandoned homes and dwindling jobs that have defined the Rust Belt for the past 50 years. And for decades its architecture has seemed strangely frozen in time.

Now the city is reaching a crossroads.

That's how Ouroussoff begins his study tour of the restoration of areas of the northern USA city that had fallen victim to the scourge of the infamous Rust Belt. Several of the recent reversals of bad fortune warm the heart, and suggest a new future for this urban center that has lost its formerly lucrative connection to the once-upon-a-time Eire Canal system. Once a thriving hubway for goods coming in from Lake Ontario and then streaming out again, along with the products of Buffalo's own manufactories, the largely-Black populated city now seems poised on brink of a new age and perhaps even a new prosperity.

Archibald

Technics: Google launching personal-edit searches minus garbage subtopics

Google has outdone itself with the launch of the new Google SearchWiki. The idea is to allow a marginal unorganized set of users who intensely dislike wading thru the now-inevitable garbage that swells search results for a given keyword, allows users now to avoid that recurrent mishap by submitting a truer listing of results -- minus the garbage links. Not that this involves a separate search result in every case of WikiSearch editing by an individual wiki user for the purpose.

Rather, individual edits for a keyword are combined with the edits of others for the same word, and a composite result becomes available to all the marginals who use the Google SearchWiki to obtain hopefully cleaner results for the set. But one wonders whether a new censoriousness could set in.

Technotes, by Technowlb

I wouldn't mind seeing Philosophy the cosmetic line disappear from the wiki's search results for Philosophy; but would the various competing sects of view try to take out results giving links to competitor websites that define, say, the keyword Reformational other than as approved by various sites of the competition?

My rather arcane examples may or may not amuse you, dear reader, but I'm sure you can extrapolate to examples for poignant to your own interests and concerns to help make the point more clear for your own purposes.

Updates:
*Reports conflict over Microsoft buying Yahoo search (MarketWatch Nov30,2k8)
*Is Apple building a search engine? Does Apple plan to take on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft? (MacWorld [UK], Nov14,2k8)

Literature: France's Le Clézio won the Nobel Prize for literature

French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio won the Nobel Prize for literature a few weeks back. Sarah Lyall, "French Writer Wins Nobel Prize," http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/books/10nobel.html, Oct19,2k8, New York Times.

The French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, whose work reflects a seemingly insatiable restlessness and sense of wonder about other places and other cultures, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. In its citation, the Swedish Academy praised Mr. Le Clézio, 68, as the “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

The works of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio reflect a sense of wonder about other cultures. ...

Mr. Le Clézio’s work defies easy characterization, but in more than 40 essays, novels and children’s books, he has written of exile and self-discovery, of cultural dislocation and globalization, of the clash between modern civilization and traditional cultures. Having lived and taught in many parts of the world, he writes as fluently about North African immigrants in France, native Indians in Mexico and islanders in the Indian Ocean as he does about his own past.

I had read his first in my halting French (with many dictionaries at my elbows!), but then had lost track of Le Clézio over the decades. That first novel of his was too much full of self-loathing. I had too much of my own to expend my reading energies with his work. Maybe now with his "mature" novels being celebrated so, I should look again.

Owlb

Summer Fun: Opera: At the Spoleto Festival USA, early June offers the Weil-Brecht 'Rise and Fall of Mahoganny City' and more

Thanks to New York Times, music reviewer and ArtsBeat blogger, James R. Oestereich proses in English, "Strange, Faraway Fantasies of Hell and Paradise" (Jun1,2k7) from Charleston, South Carolina where the Italian Spoleta Festival spins off a week of performances to the delectation of connoisseurs.

Two more disparate works could hardly be imagined. And yet they have odd similarities.

As two of its three operas this year, the Spoleto Festival USA here is offering Kurt Weill’s collaboration with Bertolt Brecht, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny); and Christoph Williband Gluck’s Île de Merlin, ou le Monde Renversé (Merlin’s Island, or the World Turned Upside Down). Both send peculiar creatures to faraway places, and both deal, in contrasting ways, with social issues.

(The third opera is Pascal Dusapin’s Faustus, the Last Night, which has its last performance on June 9.)

Summer Fun > Spoleto Opera Festival

In Mahagonny three fugitives establish a fantastical city in some realm far from civilization, but, as it turns out, within hurricane’s distance of Pensacola, Fla. In Merlin two Parisian wastrels wash up on a remote Arcadian island.

Mahagonny, a morality play awash in cynicism and pessimism, depicts a hellish world in which there is no such thing as peace and harmony, a world of greed and grasping ambition, a world in which you must do whatever you want before others do unto you what they want. The courts are “no worse than anywhere else.” It can only end badly.

Live Opera Music, by Audiosvisiotor

Merlin, a Panglossian comic effusion, offers a paradise in which the rich must marry the poor, artists earn more than businessmen or lawyers, and love is lasting and faithful. The courts know no corruption. It is, in short, the opposite of Paris. And all that is before Merlin appears to fine-tune the outcome.

Of musical genres there is no end, and opera is music with quasi-actorial qualities. Opera is a bouquet of arts with music the leading edge. I wish I could be in in Charleston for these, now that I've updated my US passport. But probably my only Opera-fun this summer will be found in reading NYT reviewers.

Sports: Major League Baseball: Toronto Blue Jays win 9 to White Sox 3; full MLB schedule in progress thru the evening

I'm proud to say Toronto's Blue Jays won their game today, and by a wide margin. You can read up on the game at CBS Sportsline.com's MLB page, "Jays' Hill, Rios team up to send ChiSox back to losing ways" (Jun2,2k7). Here's today's schedule, with several games just beginning or opening later across the continent.

Braves 5
Cubs 3

White Sox 3
Blue Jays 9

Diamondbacks 1
Mets 7

Yankees 1
Red Sox 3 Top of the 5th inning
...but Yanks rallied and the revised score is
Yankees 6
Red Sox 5 Top of the 7th inning

Cardinals 3
Astros 8 Game over.

Tigers
Indians
7:05pm

Dodgers
Pirates
7:05pm

Sports, by Sportikos

Padres
Nationals
7:05pm

Marlins
Brewers
7:05pm

Giants
Phillies
7:05pm

Royals
Devil Rays
7:10pm

Reds
Rockies
8:05pm

Twins
Athletics
9:05pm

Orioles
Angels
9:05pm

Rangers
Mariners
10:05pm

Sport: NHL Hockey: Ottawa Senators take on Anaheim Ducks for cross-continent Stanley Cup championships Game 3

The Stanley Cup play-offs for the National Hockey League's season-ending championships of all North America will enter Game 3 (of 7) tonite in Kanata, Ontario, with the Eastern Conference champs, the Senators, facing off against the Western Conf's Ducks.

The Sens are in a tite spot. They've already lost the first 2 games of the Stanley Cup finals series. They need a win, and the promises from coaches and players are thick that win it will be.

Technics: Internet: MySpace refuses to turn over sex-offenders names, cites Fed privacy law vs States attorneys genral

CNN.com email newsletter informs us informs us in "MySpace won't turn over names of sex offenders" (May16,2k7).

Story Highlights
• NEW: MySpace not turning over names of sex offenders
• NEW: MySpace attorney: Privacy act requires subpoenas
• Thousands of offenders might be MySpace members
• MySpace prevents children under 14 from setting up profiles

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- Citing federal privacy law, MySpace.com said Tuesday it won't comply with a request by attorneys general from eight states to hand over the names of registered sex offenders who use the social networking Web site.

MySpace's chief security officer said the company regularly discloses information to law enforcement officials but the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act says it can only do so when proper legal processes are followed.

Technotes, by Technowlb

"We're truly disheartened that the AGs chose to send out a letter ... when there was an existing legal process that could have been followed," the security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in an interview.

In a letter Monday, attorneys general from North Carolina, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania asked MySpace to provide information about registered sex offenders using the site and where they live.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday blasted MySpace for refusing to share the information and said no subpoena is needed for MySpace to tell the attorneys general how many registered sex offenders use the site "or other information relating to possible parole violations."

The whole article is well worth clicking up and reading in its entirety. Sad that MySpace can't find a way to comply.

Natural justice so prioritizes the children who will be victimized, above federal claims to its own h+er jurisdictional status over states in regard to such an offender's privacy r+ts, that the fed law seems to be an impediment in the real world of chat-room chickenhawks who apparently gravitate to MySpace in quest of little girls and boys. But now we find our topic has shifted from a technics focus to juridics and segzetics (yes, coined word).

Technics: Internet: MicroSoft, Yahoo to join in online search services, compete with Google

Bloomberg.com published with updates a report by Jonathan Thaw and Jason Kelly that relates to major changes coming to the battle of titans on the Internet, particularly the search services. Yahoo and Google are the major two, with Google far in the lead but not that far. "Microsoft, Yahoo May Partner to Challenge Google in Web Search" (May5,2k7).

MicroSoft has been unable to break effectively into the field, but wants part of the ad revenues that the search services routinely place on their pages. What is being presented to the public at the moment is called a "partnership," but the relation being explored seems to have in its background MS's intent to buy and swallow ("merge") Yahoo in six months time.

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. have held talks about a partnership designed to boost their share of the Web search and advertising market and catch up with Google Inc., people briefed on the discussions said.

The discussions are in the early stages and focus on a partnership rather than a merger, said one of the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the negotiations are private. Shares of Yahoo jumped the most in three years yesterday after the New York Post said Microsoft wants to buy the company.

Yahoo and Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, have struggled to dent Google's dominance in searching the Web and in the booming market for advertising spots next to search results. A combination would triple Microsoft's share of the U.S. search market to 38.4 percent, rivaling Google's 48.3 percent, according to ComScore Inc.

``It gets them enough economies of scale to be a viable force in search,'' said Walter Price, who oversees about $2 billion including Microsoft shares at RCM Capital Management in San Francisco. ``You have to ratchet up your capital expenditure to compete with Google.''

What this will mean for consumers (web users) hopefully will be more and better services, in the first instance, by Google. I could make some recommendations in that regard, as I don't think the ads I obstruded onto other's webpages when I search are sufficiently compensated by the time-consuming awkwardnesses I have to crawl thru when using Google. The Google ads on refWrite are not at all those I would select from their stable, tho usually they are tolerable, at other times downr+t obnoxious. But that's another story.

Technics: Juridics: Internet news-aggregator of content-URLs 'Digg' treated as pirate for code hack HD DVDs

CNet blogger Steven Musil reports "Unhappy Digg users bury site in protest" (May2,2k7).

Digg.com users, very upset at the news aggregate site for deleting articles containing an encryption key that could be used to crack the digital rights management on HD DVDs [H+Density DVDs], have inundated the site with thousands of recommendations to pages that contain the code. The protest was apparently heard by Digg administrators, who later reversed the ban.

On Tuesday night, the "All topics" category contained several pages of the most popular articles recommended by Digg readers populated only by links to sites that contained the code, as well as messages deriding the Motion Picture Association of America, a proponent of digital rights management and antipiracy measures. Many of the articles had upward of 4,000 recommendations from users.

A message purporting to be from Digg co-founder and CEO Jay Adelson posted to the site early Tuesday explained the rationale behind the site's former stance.

"We've been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights," the posting reads. "In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention."

Later, a message headlined with the code and credited to Digg co-founder Kevin Rose called Tuesday "a difficult day for us" and explained that site had reversed its earlier stance and would reluctantly allow articles containing the code to be referenced from the site.

"We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code," according to the posting. "...[Digg website users ha]ve made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying."

"Living by the wisdom of the crowd is what made Digg popular, said CEO Jay Adelson in a telephone interview Wednesday, reports Chris Gaylord of Christian Science Monitor in "Digg's online crowd flexes its muscle--Backlash over the site administrators' attempt to squelch postings of a secret encryption code shows power of free-speech-minded Web users" (May4,2k7).

"Digg is supposed to be the opposite of censorship," he said. "Our attorneys were advising us that it is always better to be safe than sorry and continue removing the stories. But the users clearly wanted it … and this was something we didn't want to suppress anymore."

What could have been an unraveling for Digg and other social websites – that peek behind the curtain to discover that the online community is not truly in control – turned into a solidifying event for the idea that the Internet is as much a tool for participating as it is for publishing. For many users, the code wasn't the point. The Digg deluge was about reclaiming the reins.

"This had the possibility of being a very dark moment, and it's turned out to be quite a strong statement about what it means to have socially driven websites," says John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "It was civil disobedience on restriction of free speech – but in an Internet fashion."

Technotes, by Technowlb

Two days later, the story but not the code (!) made its way to a science blog in the field of physics. PhysOrg.com updates the early reports. The blog-entry's content goes so beyond my "Technics" category that probably I should re-designate my headline "Juridics" in the first cat. Come to think of it, the slant to legal actions in tech articles, seems to be something like a trend at the moment. Or, perhaps I should retitle the first slot "Social Networking" which also played a huge role in Digg's removal of the orginal post. Article: "Has Digg Dug a Legal Hole for Itself?" (May4,2k7). From the aritcle itself you can navigate to the site's PhysOrgForum, where you can discuss the whole phenom with many others who are keeping up with this development.

Call it the Internet's version of a bloodless coup. A revolt by users of Digg.com led the administrators of the Web site to reverse a decision to remove stories containing code used to circumvent digital rights management for HD-DVDs [H+Density Digital Video something or other].

But the change of course by Digg.com has not settled anything; instead the latest flare up regarding the now-infamous code highlights both legal and security issues facing HD-DVD technology and the Internet itself.

Digg.com's initial decision to take down the stories was spurred by a cease and desist letter earlier this week from the AACS LA (Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator).

The AACS LA licenses the encryption technology meant to protect HD-DVDs from illegal copying.
But the decision [by Digg to restore the offending code] could open it up to legal action by the AACS LA for a possible violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a series of provisions that prohibit the production or distribution of technology that circumvents DRM.

Copyright 2007 by Ziff Davis Media

By the way, I found the following ad text on the Phys.Org.com website: "How To Copy A DVD Movie Burn & Copy Your Home DVD Movies to Blank CD. Play Copy Anywhere $24."

As CSM's Chris Gaylord has noted, the Digg Episode (or Epiphany, as some Diggers mite regard it) is not an isolated case:

Other successful social sites have hit similar power struggles. In September, the popular college networking site Facebook.com thought they would further connect users by rolling out a "news feed" feature that would update everyone on nearly every change occurring on friends' profiles, right down to who rejected whose party invitation. This perceived invasion of privacy launched boycotts and rumors of a National Don't Log Into Facebook Day. Site administrators changed the feature after only two days.

The HD-DVD key was not the first story Digg administrators yanked. They regularly pull down links to pornography and hate speech, says Mr. Adelson. But with more than 7,000 articles submitted to Digg every day, he acknowledges the process is very reactive. Digg's most relied-on filter is its users – for sniffing out both the good and the bad.

Digg's crowd is a tech-savvy set, so when the movie-code posting sneaked past administrators, the readers dug it. Before anyone at the Digg office noticed that the story had slipped through the cracks, 15,000 users had recommended it – making its sudden disappearance all the more noticeable, Adelson says.

So the Episode takes its place among many, and surely will not be the last of them either.

Music: Gospel: Oldtime music revival in NYC with Bluegrass Gospel's 'Diane McKoy and a Small Few"

Veteran entertainer Diane McKoy combines her love of God with her love of music and forms Bluegrass Gospel band in the Big Apple. She's a veteran entertainer who's combining her love of God and Scripture, with her love of music, by forming a new Bluegrass Gospel band in the Big Apple in her second try in her home city. As far as she knows, hers is again the only one in that northern metropolis where the grass is scarce, green not really blue.

New York, Apr28,2k7 /Christian Newswire/ -- New York City may be famed for Broadway and Wall Street, but Diane McKoy hopes America's largest city becomes known as home to her Bluegrass Gospel band, Diane McKoy and a Small Few.

"New York City may not be the first place that comes to mind when you hear about a Bluegrass Gospel band," says McKoy, the band's leader, "but God put A Small Few in my heart and I live in New York." Although there are many Gospel music groups in the Big Apple, Bluegrass Gospel bands are otherwise nonexistent. There was one other. McKoy started it. It lasted 13 years before it disbanded.

Music, by Audiovisiotor

The newly formed band features McKoy and two musician/singer friends: Steven Antonelli and Daniel Marcus. Together they produce Bluegrass Gospel and Country Gospel, music that mixes the Good Book with strings and harmonizing.

Like many indie musicians Diane McKoy and a Small Few has a My Space page. Presently, the group is playing at various venues throughout New York City. The trio is making fans out of big city dwellers wherever the band plays.

I can think of other cities, further North, that may welcome authentic Bluegrass, especially of the key Gospel variety. Fascinating too is the the fact that Gospel has differentiated into three at least subgenres: traditional, country, and bluegrass. I wonder whether I could find these different varieties online at a digital music store.

Technics: Intenet: Law suit by UK football club tries to stop circulation of video clips on YouTube/Google

Techdirt's Mike Masnick, "Premier League, Jealous Of Viacom, Sues YouTube As Well" (May5,2k7)

Nick writes in to let us know that the Premier League, in the UK (football/soccer, depending on where you are) has decided to sue Google/YouTube for copyright infringement. Nick has his own analysis, but there are a number of interesting (or silly, depending on your perspective) things about the case. First off, it was almost exactly two years ago that we were surprised to hear the Premier League suggest that it needed to sue fans who were streaming its games online (pre-YouTube days). Here were fans who were so interested in following what was going on that they'd watch games online and help promote it to others who had no way of watching the games, and the best the Premier League could do was threaten to sue? That seemed backwards. Last year, the Premier League popped up again, complaining about videos on YouTube. However, while again it seemed like bad marketing to go after fans who are promoting your sport, we figured it was at least a positive that the Premier League wasn't so silly as to blame YouTube for the actions of its users. Apparently, we spoke too soon.

Technotes, by Technowlb

If anything, this is probably a reaction to Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against Google/YouTube. The Premier League figured it might get a piece of that, or at least hope that Google would be willing to settle. Of course, Google's defense should be the same as it was for Viacom. The Premier League makes one different argument -- which is that it tried to use the anti-piracy tools provided by Google, and they didn't work. It's hard to see how the fact that the tools don't work very well is illegal. There is no magic bullet that can stop unauthorized copies -- so every "anti-piracy" tool won't work entirely. That's hardly something to sue over. The other difference is that the Premier League is looking to have the case declared as a class action suit, so that all copyright holders can get at Google in one shot. If this succeeds, then it seems likely that it will shut down YouTube, destroying one of the most effective promotional vehicles the Premier League has had in years. It's hard to see how that's beneficial for anyone.

More need to be said here, but I'll say it tomorrow. G'nite!

Sports: English Football: Ashton Villa wallops 3-0 Sheffield United in Barclays' Premier League game

Most of the game saw Sheffield struggle to hold the Villans down, as the tide just swept these Ashtonauts forward, while Sheffield gradually fell apart. They kept their faces brave thru-out the disaster in Barclay's English Premier League, in a game which I viewed live across the Pond in Toronto on Saturday afternoon our time. The crowd kept roaring thru-out, so the lads had all the encouragement they could use.

Sports / UK Football, by Sportikos

As the stats show, Ashton Villa is no paragon of football excellency, yet it soars 5 slots above Sheffield United in the standings. On the other hand, the Villa itself has to look 10 strata above itself to discern the august Machester United team at the top of Barclay's Premiership, with Chelsea breathing down their necks.

Technics: Internet: Whose counting your online clicks? and how!

When you go surfing the WordWideWeb and even the larger Internet of which www. is only the most prominent component, there are many technical means to monitor your moves or, lacking that thoroness, to sample a survey group of sizeable proportions that is most likely to be able to project/predict your most likely moves, statistically speaking. Obviously, if your own internet demographic profile is multiply-marginal, your own choices may not register in the prevailing samples.

Or, your Internet Service Provider (ISP, IP) may be selling your click habits to firms that buy them en masse. Otherwise, your obscurity would then be, perhaps mercifully, preserved--unless you are host to some other means ensconced on your own computer in the form of click-counters' cookies that send out signals as to what you are doing each time you make a move, check an ad, whatever. This is not necessarily bad, depending on your own concerns and privacy values.

MSNBC carries a report by Catherine Holshan, "Who's Counting Clicks, and How -- There are lots of ways to measure Web traffic. Here's a glance at some of the more common approaches " (Apr30,2k7).

A host of companies are doing their level best to keep tabs on how many people are visiting a given Web site, and what those users do while they are there. Some use tags installed on a user's Web browser, while others extrapolate surfing habits from a sample audience. A handful use a combination of several methods. Here's a glance at a range of approaches, with a look at what each has to say about one popular online video site, Metacafe.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Here's the varied list of click-counters and analysts, that Ms. Halshan evaluates as to What, How, Strengths, Weaknesses. Dare I advise readers to click-up her article?

Alexa Internet, owned by Amazon (AMZN)
Compete Inc.
comScore
Google Analytics (GOOG)
Hitwise
Omnitecture (OMTR)
Nielsen//NetRatings (NTRT)
Qantcast

generic - internal server logs
used by individual net companies
to track the traffic that click
onto their own sites

Technics: Internet: WorkHack is an online personal to-do list that emphasizes simplicity

Simplicity of access, that's one of WorkHack's beauties. I encountered it on the email newsletter put out by Read/Write Web which features analysis of online writing for online reading. It does so quite excellently in the article, "WorkHack redefines 'simple' task management" (Apr26,2k7) by Josh Cantone.

Simplicity of privacy, but you don't even have to register to access your private page. How this is accomplished will amaze some old habitues of the web, with this Web 2.0 cutie.

Simplicity of preferences, whether you use each or not; there's a mercifully small number of pref options. Just to get stuff off my desktop and free up bits of memory-capacity, I've tried To-Do lists before, both online and off (on my computer desktop). So when Josh Cantone says--

To-do lists should be simple, or so claims WorkHack, a task list web app that takes simple to a whole new level. There are very nearly no features to WorkHack.

Technotes, by Technowlb

There is no sign up, no tagging, no due dates, no multi-user support. Just to-do lists, organized into three priority categories (High, Medium, and Low) and sorted by color or size.

--you'll have to forgive my skepticism. But besides skeptical, I was also intrigued. So, I've been trying WorkHackfor myself, in the mini-size. That way, I can have a desktopful of blogging windows in view, pause to call up WordHack for viewing or for making a quick new entry, then close WH and go back to my work at hand.

I've decided to give it a real try, and so far it is superior to any online To-Do list I've used (like Remember the Milk with 100,000 users and as many bells & whistles ... and most online calendars used for basic to-do matters, as well, like 30 Boxes that I tried to use for to-doing). Changing my previous use-strategies, my experiment with WH involves splitting my refWrite tasks off from everything else, and keeping on my desktop in the main menu-bar an app called Check Off where I store a list of all the other things I want to get done--but include no rW tasks. Sad to say, Check-off will not work for some of you, as this desktop menu-bar app is only for Mac OSX users.

Technics: Internet Software: MicroSoft promises truckload of upgrades and new products, said to produce a 'Big Bang,' but when?

From Mike Vizard's email newsletter on internet tech (IT), What's Hot Now (Apr27,2k7), where the lead note is "Big Bang Theory suggests that MicroSoft is about to explode," I found my way to Joe Wilcox writing on "Microsoft's 'Big Bang' Is When?" (Apr26,2k7) in eWeek's MicroSoft Watch. Wilcox:

Last night's release of Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 is a monumental event for Microsoft, much bigger than the launch [earlier] of Windows Vista [MS's new operating system]. How big may depend on when Microsoft releases Vista Service Pack 1.

Windows Server is the nucleus of Microsoft's enterprise strategy, around which all other products—-even Windows Client—-revolve. Longhorn's eventual release, which Microsoft claims will be later this year, will likely set off major software upgrades, including Office 2007 and Windows Vista.

And thus challenge MS's wannabe competitors as never before, especially to the extent the new products are hack-proof. Hmmmm.

Laura DiDio, a Yankee Group research fellow, described the expected phenomenon as the "Big Bang." Other analyst firms' projections of Windows Vista upgrades, including Gartner, synch well with the Big Bang theory.

Technics > IT > Microsoft, by Technowlb

Since few of these prodcuts and their brandnames suggest anything directly familiar to me (I'm quite Apple / Macintosh / iMac OSX 3.9 (Panther) oriented in regard to my PC IT preferences), I have to remind myself that MS products still command about 80% of the software market for personal computers, while my own favourites are rah-rah-ed by Mac fans for achieving a mere 6% of PC market penetration--with the radical exceptions of iTunes Music Store and iPod which MS failed to displace from their ballooning dominance. And not just MS has been bested on this terrain: so has Sony fallen by the wayside, as far as I can tell. Now, Amazon has announced it will have a go at the digital-music IT retail market in direct competition with iTunes Music Store. I also noticed somewhere today (try this instead) that the non-digital recorded-music sales are quite stagnant; there's a downside to that as far as the musical experience is concerned.

But back to MicroSoft's banging its own big drum, skipping all too many beats these days.

Gartner expects a first major round of Vista deployments to start [Oct-Dec 2k7], with most businesses waiting until [May-Jun 2k8]. The timing is also right for Windows Server Longhorn's release and potential pull on Windows client upgrades. Many IT organizations are willing to wait for Longhorn Server as to coordinate multiple infrastructure upgrades around the same time, DiDio said.

When isn't When

But there is a wrinkle—-uncertainty which Microsoft has created. Back in November, Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president for server and tools, told eWeek that Windows Server Longhorn and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 would ship "simultaneously." Such a plan would be quite sensible, as, according to Muglia, "it is one source-code base" for both products. Since then, Microsoft has backed away from this coordinated release commitment.

So much ink has been spilled and keys tapped on the subject of MS's hegemony in the personal computer market that I couldn't add anything really new here. But I can say something from the standpoint of the h+ value I place on a pluralist market, where there are at least a handful of truly competing major corporations. And, where the trend toward open-source and interoperablity is much stronger than now. I'd like to see MicroSoft give way in its near-control of IT software generally, and also see Apple give way in its almost-monopoly in music IT. Of course, by "give way" I don't mean to suggest that either give anything. I'm just fantasizing how I'd like to see the market tumble things out in this cultural zone of life, to everyone's betterment hopefully.

Music: Pop: Rush Of Fools #1 on multiple radio charts, debut single 'Undo'

Unprecedented radio success positions band > 1st new artist to land a debut single at #1 on AC charts since 2004

Nashville, Christian Newswire (Apr25,2k7) -- "Undo," the first radio single from premiere new Midas Records band Rush Of Fools, garnered the #1 position on the Billboard Christian Chart, R&R Christian AC Monitored chart and CRW Comprehensive charts this week. Rush Of Fools is the first new artist to land a debut single at #1 on AC charts since Casting Crowns in 2004. The unprecedented multiple chart success positions the band as history makers in that no other debut artist on a new label has ever achieved such immediate success.

"We're so grateful to be able to help facilitate the ministry of such a dynamic and passionate group as Rush Of Fools," Robert Morrison, head of sales & operations at Midas Records said. "They are being used in so many wonderful ways, this is truly the beginning of something awesome!"

"Undo" is the first single from the group's forthcoming May8,2k7 Midas Records release distributed through EMI CMG. After going for ads at radio on Jan12, 2k7, the debut single rapidly climbed radio charts and immediately garnered the highest score in the history of 20 The Countdown Magazine's listener poll. In addition, Rush Of Fools have received a flood of My Space messages that describe incredible life-changing stories of hope and inspiration from listeners. Multiple requests have started to come in on a regular basis for copies of "Undo," in addition to personal stories told about how lives have been impacted by the lyrics, heart and message of the song.

Music > Pop, by Audiovisiotor

In addition to their recent radio success, Rush Of Fools are currently touring with By The Tree and The Turning on the multi-city World on Fire Tour in support of their debut release.

Rush Of Fools consists of Wes Willis (lead vocals, electric guitar), Kevin Huguley (lead vocals, electric and acoustic guitar), Jacob Chesnut (bass, vocals), Jamie Sharpe (drums, vocals) and JD Frazier (electric guitar, keys, vocals).

I'm going to be interested to follow what some Christian reviewers with broad music and videoclip interests may have to say about this work, so I won't attempt any comment here at the moment. Except something elliptical to the music itself--and that is to note the professional press-release hype from Midas/Christian Newswire, and the strategy of storming the radio pop-chart ramparts, yet with clearly expressed evangelical wordage and concerns. I wonder if Apple's iTunes Music Store is selling this song, since its new contractual arrangement with the mentioned EMI's Christian Music Group. After all, EMI's digital-download sales are presumably now without built-in DRM nonsense?

More Info:

Rush of Fools
My Space RoF page
Lab Media RoF page

Summer Fun: At the beach or the cottage, you may want to read about the city

Comment (print and online) is an amazing general-interest magazine with a reformational broad-cultural concern. The lastest issue carries one of those "Summer Reading" lists, this one by Eric O. Jacobsen, "The space between: summer reading on cities" (Apr27,2k7). To Jacobsen's list of 10 books, I've dared supplementarily to add Jacobsen's own title on his chosen topic. And then, out of sheer favouritism, I've also appended at list's end my own candidate, a volume that was such a wonderful read for me when I first ventured into its pages decades ago. I'm sure subsequent works covering the same ground have since added important new ins+ts; but my nominee, like the first title on Jacobsen's own list, is a classic on the subject it addresses.

1. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

2. Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

3. James Howard Kunstler, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition

4. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life

5. Allan B. Jacobs, Great Streets

6. David Solomon, Global City Blues

7. Robert Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier

8. Daniel Kemmis, The Good City and the Good Life: Renewing the American Community

9. Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community

Summer Fun > Reading Books, by Owlb

10. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace: The Kuyper Lectures for 1981 Delivered at the Free University in Amsterdam

11. Eric O. Jacobsen, Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith

12. Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects

Jacobsen gives us more than my barebones reproduction of his list (with my two supplements, to which I could add a second Wolterstorff title, Art in Action that includes at least a chapter on the aesthetics of any city made for living in, pleasantly...but if I added that, I would move the list into the numerics of 13, instead of dwelling restfully in the numeric symbology of 12, one book title for each of the Apostles).

I must say that Jacobsen's discussion of each title on his list is brief, but not too brief that we get only hype and no ins+t. We do get ins+t about each book, Jacobsen's measure of each. Realizing this genre of writing an intro to several books at a time, in one article, is achieved quite artfully by the author. So much so that a reader (who finds her/his summer will allow sufficient leisure for the project) could decide to make one's way thru the entire list. For this purpose, the list offers the utility of selecting what you want to read first and what second; there's suffcient matter to make your choices according to your own reading-plan.

I suggest you click-up the Comment page (live-linked above) and enjoy a good read as served-up by Jacabosen. If you want to get any or all the books into your own hands as soon as possible, each of the works' titles are live-linked to Amazon's book retailing service. You can purchase direct, of course, or you could read the reviews, then go out and find what's available at Barnes and Noble,

Sports: Soccer: Do goalies cause direction of penalty kickers?

Cognitive Daily one of several ScienceBlogs carries an interesting sports item by Dave Munger, "Can soccer goalkeepers influence penalty kicks?" (Apr24,2k7).

Penalty kicks are nearly universally reviled among soccer fans, yet they remain an important part of the game. The sport is so exhausting that extending it beyond 30 minutes of extra time in a playoff game could be dangerous for the players. Typically in playoff or championship matches, tie games get decided by a penalty kick competition.

But penalty kicks offer such an advantage to the shooter that it often seems like dumb luck when a goalkeeper manages to make a save. The usual strategy is simply to dive randomly to the left or right, and hope you guessed right. Why not just flip a coin to decide who wins the match? Chris at Mixing Memory ["The Science of Goalkeeping" (Apr20,2k7) who/which in turn glosses: Masters, S.W., van der Kamp, J., & Jackson, R.C. (2007). Imperceptibly off-center: Goalkeepers influence penalty-kick direction in soccer. Psychological Science, 18(3), 222-223.] has found a study suggesting that the position of the goalkeeper just before the shot can indeed affect the shooter:

Sports > Soccer, by Sportikos

They found that in almost all instances (96%), the goalkeeper stood just slightly (and I mean just slightly) off center, creating a difference between the distance of the goalie from the two goal posts of about 9.95 centimeters, which amounts to a difference between the areas to the right and left of the goal keeper of about 2.9% of the total area of the goal. The side to which the goalie stood did not, however, influence the side to which the goalie dove as the ball was kicked. So goalies didn't seem to be aware of their position. However, when they looked at whether penalty takers were aware of the position of the goal keeper, they found that 103 out of 174 (I'm not sure what happened to the other 26 kicks) were to the side of the goal keeper with more space. So the position of the goal keeper does appear to affect the direction of the kick on a (statistically) significant percentage of penalty kicks. Penalty takers are, then, aware of the goalie's position.

I underscored the bit about goalies not seeming to be aware of their position sl+tly to one side, but if we follow the Ways of Knowing theory of Herman Dooyeweerd (philosophy) and Douglas Blomberg (educational research), and supplemented by Howard Gardner (cognition and education), we mite say there is a human pre-analytic way of knowing that is kinematic in its orientation to space and movement/s thru it. Dancers and many athletes are gifted in this regard, and spend a career in h+tening it. Gardner says it is a special kind of intelligence, among 6 or 7 others.

Music: Business:: Amazon tries to divert iTunes Music Store users

One and only, The Times [London, UK] published yesterday an article by Dan Sabbagh, "Amazon set to launch online music store" (Apr23,2k7).

Amazon.com, the internet retailer, wants to launch an online music store next month to challenge Apple and is working on plans to sell music with reduced protection against copyright infringement.

The internet giant has approached all the music majors in the past fortnight and said that it wanted to sell unprotected MP3 songs in May as it tries to follow Apple in shaking up the music industry.

However, it remains unclear if Amazon will meet its deadline. The internet retailer has been trying, unsuccessfully, over 18 months to break into the market dominated by Apple iTunes, which has a share of about 80 per cent.

Selling music without copy protection is controversial, because it makes digitally downloaded songs easier to copy. At the beginning of the month EMI broke ranks and signed an agreement with Apple to provide unprotected songs for a higher price.

Music, by Audiovisiotor

If Amazon’s MP3 service does launch as planned, music is most likely to come from EMI and independent labels. Speculation that Vivendi’s Universal Music was already signed up to test classical MP3 downloads is understood to be wide of the mark.

Amazon’s efforts have been held back by various problems. It originally wanted to launch its own music player to rival the iPod in tandem with the store and held discussions with manufacturers, but these failed to develop successfully.

The phrasing "provide unprotected songs for a h+er price" is sheer ideology, a reference to the so-called Digital R+ts Management idiocy [DRM] which the music industry has tried to maintain to satisfy its greed with an obsolete business model that is at once not pertinent and impertinent to the listeners using the new technical possiblities for sharing music. It is the individual purchasers of digitally-recorded songs whose songs are unprotected from DRM (a song-killing virus if you try to share your music with friends--all non-commercially!

Major League Baseball super-buzy tonite

In a few minutes today's full-to-the-brim Major League Baseball agenda will unfold from time-zone to time-zone across the continent (and on TV), as the season warms up with the weather.

Athletics
Orioles 7:05pm

Blue Jays
Red Sox 7:05pm

Braves
Marlins 7:05pm

Astros
Phillies 7:05pm

Yankees
Devil Rays 7:10pm

Sports / Baseball, by Sporktkos

Rockies
Mets 7:10pm

Mariners
Rangers 8:05pm

Brewers
Cubs 8:05pm

White Sox
Royals 8:10pm

Indians
Twins 8:10pm

Tigers
Angels 10:05pm

At the moment, 7:43 PM EDT, in the bottom of the second inning it's Blue Jays 1, Red Sox 0; bottom of 2nd, Braves 1, Marlins 2; top of 2nd Astros 1, Phillies 2; bottom of 2nd, Yankees 1, Devil Rays 0.

Sports: Baseball: Phillies (4) finesse triple-play against Cincinnati's Reds (1)

Philadelphia Phillies had a tumultuous, joyous 4-1 win over Cincinnati Reds yesterday, in a game where a rare play sent the action under pitcher Cole Hamels into a triple play by his infielders.

The Phillies backed Hamels with their first triple play since May 15, 1999, against the New York Mets. [Yesterday,] With Josh Hamilton on second base and Edwin Encarnacion on first in the fifth inning, David Ross hit a grounder to Phillies third baseman Abraham Nunez, who stepped on third to force Hamilton [out] and threw to second baseman Chase Utley to force Encarnacion for the second out.

The Phillies backed [pitcher Cole] Hamels with their first triple play since May 15, 1999, against the New York Mets. With Josh Hamilton on second base and Edwin Encarnacion on first in the fifth inning, David Ross hit a grounder to Phillies third baseman Abraham Nunez, who stepped on third to force Hamilton and threw to second baseman Chase Utley to force Encarnacion for the second out.

Utley's relay to first baseman Wes Helms caught Ross by a step. The Reds hadn't hit into a triple play since catcher Eddie Taubensee lined into one against San Diego on May 19, 1997.

Sports USA > Major League Baseball

"[Ross] was the perfect guy to do it," Nunez said. "I said to myself, 'If I get the ball close to the bag, I'm going to try for it.'"

The triple play helped the Phillies preserve a 2-1 lead.

"I'm sure it saved me 10 or 15 pitches," Hamels said.

"The triple play was pretty exciting," Utley said. "It's the first one I've ever been a part of. It happened so quickly."

There were five triple plays turned in the majors last season, the last by the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 18, against the Detroit Tigers.

The foregoing is a clip from the AP account on MSNBC's Recap on ESPN.com's Baseball page online.

Aesthetics: Music: Top pop songs that changed the world, says Rolling Stone mag

Here's the Top 10 of Rolling Stone mag's just released list of the 40 pop songs that 'changed the world.'

1. Elvis Presley, "That's Alr+t"
2. Ray Charles, "I Got a Woman"
3. Chuck Berry, "Maybelline"
4. Bob Dylan, "A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall"
5. The Kingsmen, "Louie Louie"
6. The Ronnettes, "Be My Baby"
7. Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
8. Martha and the Vandellas, " Dancing in the Streets"
9. Rolling Stones, "Satisfaction"
10. Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone"

Sports: Olympics 2008: Beijing claims complete bill of health for Games, leaves out mention of pollution

UPI via Earthtimes.com reports " 'Positive' review to Beijing Olympics" (Apr19,2k7).

BEIJING, April 19 Beijing Olympic officials received a positive review from an International Olympic Committee group checking preparations ahead of the 2008 Olympics.

The IOC Coordination Commission on Thursday wrapped up three days of meetings and site visits in Beijing to check on how Chinese officials are getting ready for the 2008 Summer Games. The commission has two other Beijing visits planned prior to the Aug. 8-24, 2008, games.

Commission members visited several sites, including the National Stadium and the Olympic Village. The overall impression was positive, the IOC said in a release.

"The venues that we have just seen will be truly magnificent for the athletes to compete and live in and for the media to live and work in at games time," said commission Chairman Hein Verbruggen. "Personally, I found the visit to the National Stadium a particularly emotional experience because I can now see that the opening ceremony is nearly upon us and also just how far we have come together over these past six years." Beijing Olympic officials have scheduled 26 test events this year to help fine-tune preparations, the IOC said. Copyright 2007 by UPI

Sports > Olympic Games, by Sportikos

The particularly roseate report above is not just propaganda, it is directly tied to advertizing for airfares and Beijing Olympics packages. It's propaganda that is at the same time misrepresenting an aesthetics-sports product to make money by deleting the fact that the Beijing Olympics 2008 is a hazard to your helath.

I suspect that Earthtimes.com is a front for the Chinese Communist Party's Olympics promotion, or that the UPI story has been clipped to remove the UPI writer's coverage of the IOC's distinct unease about pollution and gridlock, or that UPI has become part of the corruption of the news. Or, all three of the foregoing simultaneously. Because, just as particularly, the cited report makes no mention of the IOC's concerns about air traffic, street traffic congestion, and the dangerously polluted air of Beijing.

More info:

Sooty air and traffic congestion in Beijing concern IOC inspectors (Apr19,2k7). The foregoing is a Canada.com page; the same story is available on MSNBC; both versions derive from an Associated Press story by Steven Wade.

IOC Commission Concerned About Beijing 2008 Pollution (Apr19,2k7, GamesBids.com)

Boycott Olympics 2008. There's no uptodate material on the 2008 Olympics, but only critical material on the big subject of China's Communist repression of human r+ts, including freedom of religion. The Boycotters note the repression of Tibetans and other Buddhists, and of the Falun Gong. They do not mention the repression of China's largest religion, Christianity. I think the Boycotters are a Falun Gong front with themselves an anti-Christian bias. Sad thing, because carrying such a bias to the point where it itself becomes repressive of info about the repression of a wide religious freedom that also embraces all Christians in China, such a selectivity is a poor strategy, even a stupid one. It is stupid to carry such a bias into reporting human-r+ts news of repressions in China, because the best constituency for the boycott project hypothetically would be North American evangelical Christians who cheer on the unregistered Protestant house-church movement, and North American conservative Catholics who cheer on the underground Roman Catholic Church aligned in China with the Papacy in defiance of the Communist govt and its registered churches. I'm not joining a Boycott Olympics 2008 movement so unwise and so biased itself, to the point of erasure of other Chinese religions besides Falun Gong and Buddhism--tho these too have indeed experienced the same horrors as unregistered-church Christians. The Boycotters should get their own act together if they want to unite all people of conscience. Otherwise, let the Games begin!

Sports: Soccer: Italy denied next Euro Football Tournament allegedly because of violence

A blog-entry at Eursoc shares info about the internal politics of soccer (called "football" in Europe). At stake are the location of the 1012 all-Europe games (Apr18,2k7):

Euro 2012 For Poland

Football: Italy may be world champions, but the country's recent history of crowd violence and match-fixing seems to have damaged its standing with European soccer's governing body, UEFA.

Today it was announced that Poland and Ukraine will jointly host the Euro 2012 football championship, not Italy, which was previously a firm favourite for the tournament.

Sports > Soccer/Football, by Sportikos

The head of Poland's football association Michal Listkiewicz said he "couldn't believe" UEFA's decision.

EURSOC can't really believe it either: Italy isn't the only nation facing a match fixing scandal. In Poland, over 80 people have been arrested in an enquiry into match fixing. The government suspended the entire football board, but was forced to back down following pressure from world football body FIFA.

Italy played host to the 1990 World Cup Finals.

This will be the first time since 1976 that a former Iron Curtain nation has hosted a major football tournament. Back then, Yugoslavia hosted the competition, which was won by Czechoslovakia.

The current champion of Europe is Greece. Next year sees the 2008 tournament, held in Austria and Switzerland.

In any case, not counting match fixes, the violence in Italian "futball" has been horrendous, like North American hockey.

Sports: Hockey: Sidney Crosby guy to watch in today's playoffs

Sid the Kid is the guy to keep an eye on in today's pro hockey playoffs, where he hits the ice for the Pittsburgh Penguins. The series is the 2007 Stanley Cup Conference Quarterfinals. It pitted the Pens (4) versus the Senators (3) in Game 2.

Sports > Hockey, by Sportikos

In Game 1, Pens lost 3 to the Sens 6. Despite the win yesterday, he satisfied neither himself nor his team-mates, but his record and rep still put us on alert for Game 3: Sun, April 15 @ PIT 6pm ET.

Did I menion that Crosby is a NovaScotia-born Canadian?

More Info:

"Crosby will get by with some help from his friends" (Apr14,2k7) by Evan Grossmann

Sports: Pro Baseball: Yanks pull win from 13th inning

NYT's Tyler Kepner reports on a fantastic Major League Baseball game worthy of history-laden New York Yankees.

Oakland, Calif., April 14 – The Yankees lead the majors in errors, with 13 in their first 10 games. Their starting rotation is depleted by injuries, and their bullpen is exhausted. But they are always a threat to change a close game with one swing.

Alex Rodriguez hit his seventh home run of the season in the fifth inning.

It happened on Saturday at the Coliseum, when Jason Giambi belted a home run to right center off Lenny DiNardo in the 13th inning, leading the Yankees to a 4-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics.

"This could be a big early-season win," said Giambi, who had been 0 for 5. "We might look back and say, 'That was the beginning.' Hopefully, this is the one that really turns it around for us."

Kepner is an excellent sports writer; and you can well imagine, as this game continued 4 more innings beyond the 3-3 tie at the end of the 9th, the tension built up to give Kepner a game worth his skills. Then Giambi homered the tie-breaker, to show his batting prowess.

Technics: Internet Web2.0: Google buys DoubleClick to continue lead in online advertizing

Read/WriteWeb email newsletter carries word of "Google to Acquire DoubleClick For $3.1 Billion In Cash." (Apr13,2k7)--also at R/WW website.

In a move predicted by R/WW's Sean Ammirati and New York Times a week or so ago, one of the big Internet companies has acquired online advertising system DoubleClick. And the buyer is none other than Web 2.0's big spender, Google! According to the press release just out:

"The acquisition will combine DoubleClick's expertise in ad management technology for media buyers and sellers with Google's leading advertising platform and publisher monetization services.

The combination of Google and DoubleClick will offer superior tools for targeting, serving and analyzing online ads of all types, significantly benefiting customers and consumers..."

This is a huge deal - because for DoubleClick, Google is paying nearly twice the amount it paid for YouTube late last year ($1.65B in that case).

The deal appears to have been hastened by DoubleClick's announcement earlier this month that it plans to launch an exchange for online advertisements. Sean analyzed this development on 4 April, noting that it may lead to more profitable monetization of online ads.

Technotes, by Technowlb

As if Google isn't profitable enough already in that department! One thing's for sure, this is a blow to Microsoft - whose AdCenter product was designed as a direct competitor to Google's Adsense/AdWords. But now Google has - yet again - trumped the competition (Microsoft and Yahoo) by taking its online advertising technology into new territory.

MarketWatch reporter Gabriel Madway takes up the optimatics aspect in monetary terms, "Google agrees to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion" (Apr13,2k7):

San Francisco (MarketWatch) -- Google Inc. (GOOG: GOOG466.29, -1.10, -0.2% ) said late Friday it has agreed to acquire digital marketing company DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion in cash from private equity firms Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity, and [Google] management. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. DoubleClick is based in New York. "It has been our vision to make Internet advertising better - less intrusive, more effective, and more useful," said Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, in a statement. "Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the Internet more efficient for end users, advertisers, and publishers."

Hopefully, the new DoubleClick-able Google will allow both websites and blogs to have greater control over their ads when dealing with Google's system.

I interviewed rW's General Editor, Owlb, on our advertizing perspective. He said: "I have been very sad about the lack of editorial fit between Google Adsense ads that we run on various pages of refWrite. I'm definitely looking for something competitive in regard to the possiblity of our choosing--say, from an Adsense massive list--a menu of advertizing that wholely fits with our editorial policy and regular-readers as our best-market niche. Adsense has an alogarithm by which to choose and place ads here, but often that mechanically-applied numeric formula is so skewed in its determination of the editorial slant of what should be the best ad-content for us, that Google's search for profits here is so mis-structured it seems to reduce itself to absurdity. Let refWrite choose which ads to place, as part of our own overall editorial/advertizing identity. We remain non-commercial, but we would prefer that our own selection of adverts (at least give us a veto power!) be given the first chance to make a marginal profit off our existence." That's our General Editor, Owlb.

As to my own view, I tow the line but still enjoy the suprizes we encounter strait from the Google mathemical ad-machine.

Technics: Games: Top game company shifts to bigger later model, cuts off low-end customers

FoxNewsreports on top game company's abandonment of the little guy--both the low-end buyer and smalller console model of PlayStation 3 (call the newer models "PayStation"), "Sony Discontinues 20GB PS3" (Apr12,2k7).

SAN FRANCISCO — Sony Corp. has discontinued the 20-gigabyte PlayStation 3 game console so it can focus on a more popular--and expensive--model that has a bigger hard drive.

Since the launch of the PlayStation 3 in November, consumers have been buying the 60-gigabyte model 10 to 1 over the cheaper unit, said Dave Karraker, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Both models have much of the same hardware inside, but the 60-gigabyte console, which costs $600, has built-in wireless support and slots for memory sticks and other storage media.

Retailers still have several thousand 20-gigabyte models on store shelves, Karraker said Thursday. The 20-gigabyte consoles will continue to have a suggested retail price of $500 until supplies run out.

"Better to put resources toward the ones that retailers want," Karraker said.

Severe production shortfalls in the months after the PlayStation 3 debuted meant that thousands of consumers had to wait in long lines and still couldn't buy a console.

On eBay and other auction sites, bidders were willing to pay several times the suggested retail prices so they could have consoles for the holidays.

The discontinuation racket is the real game here, displaying Sony's contempt for its low-end customers in the country where it is a guest business.

Sports: Swimming: Phelps wins 7 golds at world aquatics meet

"American Michael Phelps Sunday became the first swimmer to win seven gold medals at a world aquatics championship. He set the mark by breaking his own world record in the men's 400-meter individual medley in Melbourne, Australia." I found this item on Christian Science Monitor email newsletter. I'll have to check out the further facts, hunt down the info about this amazing competitive swimmer.

Sports:Hockey: Toronto's last chance for the playoffs, tonite vs NY Islanders

Toronto's Maple Leafs face their last chance to gain entry to the end-of-season tournament for the National Hockey League's championship. In a racy pre-game psych-up, Bill Lankhof of Toronto Sun writes, "Somehow, Leafs keep hanging on" (Apr5,2k7)

If it is true that the most dangerous animal is one that is wounded and cornered then the Maple Leafs should be a fearsome sight to behold the next couple days.

They've got the Islanders and Montreal [Saturday, Apr7,2k7] right where they want them. The rest of the NHL just doesn't know it yet.

This team has more nicks, scratches and blemishes than a frat-house beer fridge. Parts keep falling off, the door is hanging by one hinge but somehow it keeps getting the job done.

When they beat the [Philadelpia] Flyers Tuesday they did it on goals by three defencemen, against a hot goaltender, with a No. 1 line centred by goal-slump ridden Mats Sundin and a second line centred by someone with the injury yips.

For three-quarters of the season this team couldn't win at home. Now, when it had no choice, it's won eight in a row.

They have had more man-games lost to injury than any other team. Kyle Wellwood, the lynch-pin of the power-play is back from hernia surgery, but skates like he's carrying a Ming Vase in his hockey pants. But, he'll play tonight because without him the Leafs might as well decline the penalty.

"He does so many great things even at the speed he's going. But my concern is the cautiousness in his skating. He can still create some things. But the Kyle that we remembered before the injury was quick to holes. He's not at that point right now," coach Paul Maurice said yesterday.

Here's hopin'!

FINAL SCORE & STATS: Sports Illustrated

Sports: College Athletics: University of Florida in Basketball, Football, and Women's Gymnastics

A fan of the bastion of atheletic prowess, the University of Florida posted on That'sFit blog: "My Florida Gators win second straight NCAA basketball title and teach life leason" (Apr3,2k7). Altho he left out some key details, Fitz's blog conveys the spirit of an enamored fan after his team reached the top of the National Collegiate Athletic Assocation for the second time in a row these last two years (and we mite add, it's football team earlier won the NCAA championship as well. Whether it's Gator Basketball or Gator Football (that's American-style football), this fan exudes his joy and gives us a bonus sermonette to boot:

Last night I watched and cheered as my Alma mater's basketball team won the Big Dance. Again! It was a spectacular feat which was well earned. I've had the luxury to sit court-side at many games this year, and as wonderful as they look on television, they're even more impressive in person. I have tons of respect for this team.

The Gators are composed of incredible athletes who play selflessly every second of every game. Each Gator works hard in the gym and on the court more for the guy next to him than for himself. They are quick, agile, strong and smart. Each player is a coach's dream. Since they play for one another, they never made excuses or trained half way.

Gators' basketball coach, Billy Donovan, was so roundly supported thru-out the Florida ranks for his second championship in a row that he turned down a contract offer to coach his sport at the more prestigious University of Kentucky.

While Donovan is staying, four of his players, not even yet seniors, are turning pro to enter the National Basketball Association.

...[J]uniors Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Taurean Green will all give up their final year of college eligibility to enter the National Basketball Association. The quartet and senior Lee Humphrey teamed to become the first starting five in National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament history to win back-to-back titles.

``They need to take the next step,'' Donovan said at a televised press conference with the players in Gainesville, Florida.

Each of the players are considered by scouts to be first-round picks. College underclassmen have until April 29 to declare for the June 28 draft. They can withdraw their names by June 18 if they don't hire an agent.

``We did everything we could possible do in college basketball,'' Brewer, the Most Outstanding Player of this year's Final Four, said. ``It's been so much fun, but we all know it's time to move on and take new challenges.''

The four players accounted for 83 percent of the scoring from Florida starters this season. Green averaged a team-high 13.3 points, Brewer and Horford averaged 13.2 points each and Noah 12 points.

Florida captured its second straight national title April 2 with an 84-75 win over Ohio State. The Gators are the seventh team overall and first since Duke in 1991 and 1992 to win consecutive titles.

After winning the championship last year, Noah, Horford and Brewer were projected as first-round NBA draft picks and opted to return to Florida for their junior seasons. The Gators returned to the Final Four this year, beating UCLA in a rematch of last year's title game and Ohio State.

Donovan has a 261-103 record in 11 seasons at Florida.

Without his stars on hand next year, Donovan will be building again on younger players at the university for their sophomore and junior years. He must see prospects, and have a real appetite for challenges.

As tho all that weren't enuff, New York Times weaves the men's stories in basketball and football into an account featureing UFlorida's women's gymnastics team.

last weekend’s Southeastern Conference championships in Arkansas.

The Gators’ gymnasts, using the success of the university’s reigning national champion football team and its resplendent men’s basketball team as a springboard, vaulted Georgia and Alabama to win the title, becoming the first college other than the Bulldogs or Crimson Tide since 1989 to wear the crown.

With the NCAA regionals looming in two weeks — followed two weeks later by the national championships in Salt Lake City — the gymnasts did not dare take a practice off, even to acknowledge the team whose success has spurred their own.

Here, at the center of the college sporting scene, while other athletic programs ponder how to catch up to the Gators, the Gators are busy chasing one another. After the football team equaled the success of the basketball team, the basketball team raised the bar by repeating, becoming the first university to win the football and basketball Division I championships in the same academic year.

Samantha Lutz, a senior gymnast, said, “I feel like all the sports are feeding off each other, like the entire athletic association has caught fire.”

Gators, it seems, are surfacing everywhere. Ryan Lochte, a former Florida standout, last week set an individual world record and won five medals at the World Aquatics Championships in Australia. An ex-Gator golfer, Camilo Villegas, is playing this week in his first Masters.

There has to be some kind of special social-psychological phenom in process at University of Flordia--as well as a lot of hardwork and discipline on the part of the student athletes, and good coaches.

Music: Internet: Now you can download pay-for songs on iTunes from EMI--without DRM copy blockade

Associated Press via CNN carries the news "EMI-Apple pen deal to sell songs" (Apr3,2k7). The EMI side of the partnership means that you can purchase for a little more per song thru Apple's iTunes improved digital recordings of Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Coldplay and a whole lot more artists too (but not songs of the Beatles--no loss, to my ears!). And you can do so in about a month's time without those hi-tech blocks called DRMs (Digital R+ts Management technowreckers) that are currently installed in most online music downloads when you make your purchase.

EMI Group is the first and perhaps the only one of the Big Music corporations to break with the DRM technoblocks that prevent an owner from copying a song and perhaps sending it on non-commercially to friends, etc. You know, P2P file-sharing, person-to-person.

The announcement followed calls by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs earlier this year for the world's four major record companies, including EMI Group PLC, to start selling songs online without copy-protection software.

Music, by Audiovisiotor

The Big Music holdouts are Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner.

The technology, known as digital rights management, or DRM, is designed to combat piracy by preventing unauthorized copying or sharing, but it also can be a consumer headache. Some music players, for instance, support one type of DRM software but not others.

The DRM used by Apple does not work with competing services or devices, meaning that consumers can only download songs from iTunes to work on their computers or iPod music players.

The lock between the download services and players has drawn criticism from European industry regulators, who argue that it limits buyer choice.

"Doing the right thing for the customer going forward is to tear down the walls that impede interoperability," Jobs told a London news conference.

Yes indeed!. Mr Jobs, but what about the point the Eurocrats are making--interoperability! Got a strategy for achieving that? And surrender your grasp on the digital music market thru your reigning advantage in the brilliant combo of iTunes Music Store and iPod? I doubt it.