And the people who would have us all branded like cattle and trackable via a publicly interconnected (but ultimately, privately owned and maintained) centralized network move one step closer to reaching their goal...

Hey Lisa -- that's a pretty slanted intro -- what's your beef?

Well, I have two actually, thanks for asking :-) :

Beef #1 -- This company is basically asking for permission to market a treatment that hasn't been approved by the FDA yet. According to this AP article, the company hasn't even started the process yet. I don't like non-FDA approved drugs being marketed like FDA approved drugs (for hopefully obvious reasons).

Beef #2 -- We, as a country and a world, haven't figured out the legal, privacy and ethical issues yet if this whole implant thing, and until we do, I think that giving the private sector the "ok" to move forward with producing and marketing such systems as if they are already legal is a really bad idea. (Much in the same way that we aren't officially cloning humans yet until we figure out that mess.)

Anyway, what do you think about this stuff people? Are you ready to run out and have an uber-tracking device implanted under your skin?

Okay, next question: Are you ready to have one implanted into your newborn child?

Check out:
U.S. to Weigh Computer Chip Implant.

A Florida technology company is poised to ask the government for permission to market a first-ever computer ID chip that could be embedded beneath a person's skin.

For airports, nuclear power plants and other high security facilities, the immediate benefits could be a closer-to-foolproof security system. But privacy advocates warn the chip could lead to encroachments on civil liberties.

The implant technology is another case of science fiction evolving into fact. Those who have long advanced the idea of implant chips say it could someday mean no more easy-to-counterfeit ID cards nor dozing security guards.

Just a computer chip - about the size of a grain of rice - that would be difficult to remove and tough to mimic.

Other uses of the technology on the horizon, from an added device that would allow satellite tracking of an individual's every movement to the storage of sensitive data like medical records, are already attracting interest across the globe for tasks like foiling kidnappings or assisting paramedics.

Applied Digital Solutions' new "VeriChip'' is another sign that Sept. 11 has catapulted the science of security into a realm with uncharted possibilities - and also new fears for privacy.

"The problem is that you always have to think about what the device will be used for tomorrow,'' said Lee Tien, a senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group.

Here's the poop on the Bush Administration's short-lived Ministry of Disinformation...oops! I mean Department of Strategic Influence:
Rumsfeld: Pentagon to Close Office.

Guess the government is going to go back to its usual disinformation distribution channels :-)

The Judge (hand)picked to decide on the case the GAO has brought against Vice President Cheney for not cooperating with its Enron investigation is former Whitewater Prosecutor John Bates.

See the Washingon Post article by Pete Yost:
Judge in Cheney Case Was Prosecutor.

The W3C has released a new Patent Policy Working Draft, and Simon St. Laurent has taken a whack at explaining it in english.

Here's another meta-blog entry (meta-blogs = blogs about other blogs).

This time it's written by MIT's Henry Jenkins for the MIT Technology Review:
Blog This.

What will happen to democracy in the current media environment, where power is concentrated in the hands of a few publishers and networks? Media scholar Robert McChesney warns that the range of voices in policy debates will become constrained. The University of Chicago Law School's Cass Sunstein worries that fragmentation of the Web is apt to result in the loss of the shared values and common culture that democracy requires. As consumers, we experience these dual tensions: turn on the TV and it feels like the same programs are on all the channels; turn to the Web and it's impossible to distinguish the good stuff from the noise. Bloggers respond to both extremes, expanding the range of perspectives and, if they're clever, creating order from the informational chaos.

Here's a nice piece by Brenda Sandburg for Law.com that helped me to better understand the relationship between all the latest developments in Copyright Law (such as the DMCA), Copyright Regulations (such as all of the recent compulsory licensing proceedings), the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case that will soon go before the Supreme Court, and the recent investigations by the FTC and DOJ's into whether our country's IP policies conflict with our Antitrust laws.

Check out:
Under the Microscope.
(Thanks, Jon.)

Here's a Forbes article by Dan Ackman that has more of the business-oriented details about the music industry's current situation:

Digital Music After Napster: The Digital Rights Future.

Good news for CD Burner company Roxio -- Business is booming and the company is moving into the digital photo and video editing space. Good move -- since I predict recordable DVDs will be as popular as recordable audio CDs by this time next year!

See the Businessweek article by Jane Black:
Roxio: Burning Its Way to Bigger Things?.

These days, it's pretty rare for any company, let alone a high-tech outfit, to raise its guidance for revenues and earnings per share. But that's just what Roxio (ROXI ), which makes popular CD-burning software, did on Feb. 25. Thanks to its acquisition of Toronto software company MGI and brisk holiday sales, revenues for fiscal 2002 (ending Mar. 30) are expected to total $142 million, up 5% from its original projection of $135 million. Earnings will come in at 91 cents per share, up from 89 cents forecast earlier.

The fact that the digital-media sector is littered with failures makes Roxio's performance all the more impressive. The company, which went public in May, 2001, has been profitable throughout its six-year history. And analysts expect Roxio to keep growing. Its products, which include software for CD and DVD burning, photo and video editing, and data recovery, dominate some of the high-tech sector's most explosive markets.

The number of CD burners will increase from 120 million in 2001 to 546 million in 2005, according to market research firm International Data Corp (IDC). DVD burning is also expected to take off. In 2001, IDC reports just 2.4 million DVD burners were sold. By 2005, that number will be higher than 72 million, a compound annual growth rate of 135%. Those trends could translate into big sales and even bigger profits for Roxio. With the stock trading at around $15, as of Feb. 22, analysts say now could be a good time to buy.

President Bush is ready to start drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Check out the Wired News article:
Bush's Energy Plan: Let's Drill.

Here's a Salon interview with the plaintiffs in the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case that the Supreme Court agreed to review last week.

See:
Mickey Mouse vs. The People.

Neither Eric Eldred nor Laura Bjorklund intended to become warriors in the battle over copyright. They simply wanted to publish old books; Eldred's Web site has hosted versions of old Nathaniel Hawthorne novels and Robert Frost poems since 1995, while Bjorklund's tiny Massachusetts publishing company focuses on genealogy texts and out-of-print histories.

But on Oct. 27, 1998, President Clinton, urged on by a Disney Corp. mindful that its Mickey Mouse copyright was about to expire, passed a law that extended copyright protection for an additional 20 years. Eldred and Bjorklund were outraged. In their view, the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act harmed the public by retroactively taking information from the public domain and putting it back under the control of copyright holders. Corporations would benefit, but small publishers and the general public, they argued, would suffer.

Lawrence Lessig, then a law professor at Harvard, heard their call and took on the case pro bono. Eldred and Bjorklund became the first two plaintiffs in a class action suit brought against Congress itself. On Feb. 19, after nearly four years of litigation, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

At issue is whether Congress -- with the constitutional authority to issue copyrights and patents "for limited times" to "promote the progress of science and useful arts" -- overstepped its bounds in this case. The previous law, passed in 1978, protected an author's work for 50 years after an author died, while works for hire -- those created for a corporation, like Mickey Mouse -- were protected for 75 years. The Bono Act extended both categories by two decades.

Those who favor the law argue that Congress should be allowed to determine the definition of "limited times" and that the Bono Act simply puts the U.S. on equal footing with European intellectual property laws, which offer a similar degree of protection.

Eldred and Bjorklund vehemently disagree. In their first joint interview since the Supreme Court decided to review the case, they exuberantly explained why in a conference call with Salon.

Here's a nice article by Neil Strauss in Sunday's New York Times on the latest battle between artists and record industry:
Behind the Grammys, Revolt in the Industry.

The major record labels depend on three things to survive: the money of fans, the music of their artists and the support of the multinational corporations that own them. But the labels are suddenly realizing that they can't depend on any of these. In the past, downturns were attributed to the cyclical nature of the recording business. But this is the first time in recent memory that everyone across the board — artists, executives, fans and industry observers — seems cynical about the very future of record labels as we know them.

"If the industry doesn't change the way we do business," said Val Azzoli, co-chairman of Atlantic Records, "we're going to be bankrupt."

While it has been widely reported that music sales were down 5 percent last year, this is the least of the music business's woes. What is more troubling is not yesterday's sales but tomorrow's profits, and panicked executives are hurling recriminations in all directions: at radio stations with ever more limited playlists, at the downloading of music from the Internet, at the increased ease of duplicating CD's on home computers and stereos, at the skyrocketing costs of marketing albums, at artists fighting their record companies, at the replacement of musically knowledgeable executives with corporate bean counters and at multinational companies that demand quick profits and instant hits. Add to all this new judicial and political problems, most recently a court ruling Friday in the Napster case that states that the record labels' own Internet services "may run afoul of Internet antitrust laws."

The CARP (Copyright Abritration Royalty Panel) webcasting rates have just been released today.

These proceedings set the compulsory licensing fee rates for webcasting.

I'm just taking a look at these myself so stay tuned...

Holy cow! The Supreme Court is going to hear the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case!

This could put Mickey Mouse into the public domain, and remove the last round of Copyright Extension Law that went through in 1998. (Please excuse the gross oversimplification :-)

Here are two great articles that came out today if you want to learn more about this:

Amy Harmon's article in the NY Times:
Case Could Shift Balance in Debate on Public Domain

Kendra Mayfield's story in Wired News:
Setting Boundaries on Copyrights

Should PayPal be proud of their recently successful IPO or ashamed of themselved for messing with the little guy in the process?

Whatever the situation, it's bad enough that someone felt strong enough to start a PayPal Sucks website.

Okay, I'm ripping off BoingBoing pretty bad today...but what can I say? :-)
(Thanks, Cory.)

Quote below from Blogger's own Evhead (the aforementioned "little guy").

As of today, PayPal has lost Pyra/Blogger's business. We're still using them at the moment (and don't let this stop you from sending us money ;), but will be transitioning off as soon as we can. The reason is this: Over a week ago, they put a restriction on our account, which means we can't withdraw or send money, though we can still take it. The supposed reason for the restriction was because they found there were more than the allowed two accounts (one personal, one business) with my contact information. Never mind that two of the accounts were setup for testing purposes and never used. Never mind that they didn't first bother to email and tell me that this is a problem and could I close some of them. (Or, wait, maybe they shouldn't have allowed me to create them in the first place?) And never mind even that, although all these accounts have been open for months, they happen to not put on the restriction until we attempted to withdraw several thousand dollars into our bank account—more than we ever had before (fishy?).

Dumpster Justice. A snitch list is left on several old police computers are eventually thrown away and re-sold to the world at large via an unsuspecting dumpster diver.

See the Associated Press story:
Confidential list of Marion police informants hits streets. (Thanks, Cory.)

Here's a great article by Seth Shulman for MIT's Technology Review about protecting our intellectual future:
Intellectual-Property Ecology: Owning the Future.

Let’s consider this environmental analogy. As recently as the 1960s, there was no “environment” in the broad sense of the word. Sure, some conservation groups like the Sierra Club had long been in the wilderness protection business. And Rachel Carson’s landmark Silent Spring, published in 1962, brought the misuse of pesticides to public attention. But still, even with rallying points like the Cuyahoga River catching fire in Cleveland in 1969, the people who worried about such things tended to see them as disparate issues. Like water pollution. Or overpopulation. It wasn’t until 1970 that such groups finally came together at the first “Earth Day.”

Now, fast-forward a few decades and jump into that intangible, amorphous realm we call “intellectual property.” There is a growing catalogue of worries about IP issues—from the emergence of overly broad “business method” patents to heated charges that proprietary claims on pharmaceuticals stifle affordable access to medicine in the Third World. A day hardly goes by without a high-profile intellectual-property battle heading to court. Meanwhile, university researchers are griping that open, collegial dialogue is being eroded by proprietary interests and secrecy as professors vie to create startups and get rich.

These issues are interwoven because they all involve balancing similar kinds of private and public needs in a knowledge-based economy. And yet, the various parties—from the League for Programming Freedom to the American Library Association—have tended to work in isolation on their own narrow sets of issues. But the parochialism is fading as parties learn they’re arguing about the same issues. Which is why the Duke meeting could go down as a watershed: it marked the start of an organized movement to protect the conceptual commons.

Here's an article by another joker that thinks weblogs are a passing fad for people with nothing better to do.

Many weblogs are little more than the random musings of introverted souls with too much time on their hands.

Yep. That's me in a nutshell. Introverted. Bored. (She mused randomly.)

This article reminds me of something I saw on Law and Order a couple weeks ago that caught my attention when the cops were able to use a suspect's library records to get a search warrant for his apartment.

See:
Big Brother is watching you read,
by Christopher Dreher for Salon. (Thanks, Josh.)

Tattered Cover's ordeal began in March 2000, when the Adams County District Attorney's Office contacted Meskis to inform her that the Drug Enforcement Agency was planning to subpoena the store for one of her customer's sales records. During a raid of a methamphetamine lab in a trailer park in suburban Denver, authorities had found an empty Tattered Cover shipping envelope addressed to one of the suspects in an outside trashcan, and two nearly new books, "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture," by Uncle Fester, and "The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories," by Jack B. Nimble, inside the trailer. The DEA planned to strengthen its case by tying the suspect's illegal activities to his purchases of books outlining how to make methamphetamine.

Meskis answered that such a request was a violation of First Amendment rights and said she would fight it in court. "I thought that was the end," she recalled, "but it wasn't." Instead of bringing it to court, the DEA persuaded a judge to authorize a search warrant, which would be immediately executable and would bypass judicial interference. That's how the five task-force officers wound up in her bookstore.

Meskis' first try at quashing the warrant wasn't as successful as she'd hoped. In October 2000, a Denver district court judge narrowed the warrant's scope but ordered the store to turn over the information. She appealed that ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court, and on Dec. 5, 2001, lawyers from both sides presented oral arguments. The decision is expected sometime this spring.

It gives me hope to read pieces such as John Perry Barlow's The Crime of Sharing. Hope that such a clearly presented argument might actually start the ball rolling towards some change in the right direction.

Over the last several years, the entertainment industry has railroaded a number of laws and treaties through Washington and Geneva that are driving us rapidly toward a future in which the fruits of the mind cannot be shared. Instead they must be purchased—not from the human beings who created them in the first place, but only from the media megaliths.

Of course, the justification for this tightened control is the Internet, which ironically, grew almost entirely from sharing. Imagine how different things would be today if IBM had maintained proprietary control over the architecture of the personal computer, or if Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn had created a highly proprietary company called TCP/IP, Inc. What if Tim Berners-Lee had decided to take out a software patent on the World Wide Web?

The fact that the Internet makes it possible for individuals to distribute their intellectual creations directly to consumers terrifies the old industrial intermediaries. At the same time, the Internet gives intermediaries the potential to extract a fee from every single repetition of an expression. Unfortunately, this infringes on the time-honored practice of fair use.

Smile! Next time you go to Washington D.C. remember to smile to the cameras.

Check out the Reuters article:
Washington Plans Unprecedented Camera Network.

(references below are to a Wall Street Journal article that requires registration to access - if anyone has the link, please let me know.)

Cameras installed by the police have been programmed to scan public areas automatically, and officers can take over manual control if they want to examine something more closely.

The system currently does not permit an automated match between a face in the crowd and a computerized photo of a suspect, the Journal said. Gaffigan said officials were looking at the technology but had not decided whether to use it.

Eventually, images will be viewable on computers already installed in most of the city's 1,000 squad cars, the Journal said.

The Journal said the plans for Washington went far beyond what was in use in other U.S. cities, a development that worries civil liberties advocates.

Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, noted there were few legal restrictions of video surveillance of public streets. But he said that by setting up a "central point of surveillance," it becomes likely that "the cameras will be more frequently used and more frequently abused."

"You are building in a surveillance infrastructure, and how it's used now is not likely how it's going to be used two years from now or five years from now," he told the Journal.

CodeCon is coming up at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco this weekend. The presentations look great and lots of neat people will be there.

It's already too late to register online, so you'll just have to show up at the door. See you there!

SF Gate's Hal Plotkin has written a column about Lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons project.

This seems as good a time as any to announce that I am the Technical Architect for the Creative Commons. Although I am not at liberty to discuss the details of what we are doing publicly at this time, Lawrence Lessig was kind enough to spill the beans about some of them in Hal's article.

I'll be providing the details of what we're building at my presentation at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference in Santa Clara in May 2002.

Check out:
All Hail Creative Commons: Stanford professor and author Lawrence Lessig plans a legal insurrection,
by Hal Plotkin for SF Gate.

In a boon to the arts and the software industry, Creative Commons will make available flexible, customizable intellectual-property licenses that artists, writers, programmers and others can obtain free of charge to legally define what constitutes acceptable uses of their work. The new forms of licenses will provide an alternative to traditional copyrights by establishing a useful middle ground between full copyright control and the unprotected public domain.

The first set of licensing options Creative Commons plans to make available are designed mostly for people looking for some protections as they move their wares into the public domain. Those protections might include requirements that the work not be altered, employed for commercial purposes or used without proper attribution.

Lessig adds that it's possible Creative Commons' licenses may eventually evolve to include options that permit or enable certain commercial transactions. An artist might, for example, agree to give away a work as long as no one is making money on it but include a provision requiring payments on a sliding scale if it's sold. As participation in the Commons project increases, a variety of specific intellectual-property license options will evolve in response to user needs, which in turn would create templates for others with similar requirements.

Within a few months, artists, writers and others will soon be able to go online, select the options that suit them best and receive a custom-made license they can append to their works without having to pay a dime to a lawyer, let alone the thousands of dollars it typically costs to purchase similar legal services.

Artificial wombs are here. The only thing stopping scientists from growing a baby to term in one (or even very far past fertilization) are the government regulations prohibiting such activity.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this article were all of the good things that could come from an artificial womb. Then I read about how some women felt threatened and thought "kinda like the way that some men feel threatened by a turkey baster?"

But I suppose there are a ton of ethical implications that need to be considered now, and quickly, if we suddenly have the technology to create baby factories a la Brave New World. Much to consider indeed.

Take a look at:
Men redundant? Now we don't need (no stinkin') women either ,
by Robin McKie for The Observer .

Teleportation is as close (or as far away) as it's always been -- theoretically, in our minds. The stuff in this new scientist article doesn't sound any different than the stuff my old roommates were talking about in 1986. (Yes I was in high school - but they were chemistry graduate students at CAL.)

It's still nice to see these ideas in print in a popular magazine. Beam me up Scotty!

Check out:
Teleporting larger objects becomes a real possibility,
by Anil Ananthaswamy for New Scientist.

Kraft is using genetically-altered corn and soybeans in its food products (particularly Tombstone Pizza and Stovetop Stuffing).

Take a deep breath, and then read:
Kraft Target Of Anti-Biotech Food Campaign,
by Deborah Cohen for the Environmental News Network (ENN.com).

A coalition of green health-policy groups Wednesday called on Kraft Foods Inc., the largest North American food maker, to remove genetically altered ingredients from several of its popular products, including Tombstone pizzas and Stove Top stuffing.

The Washington-based coalition, called Genetically Engineered Food Alert, said an independent laboratory had tested several Kraft products and found they contained genetically altered corn or soybeans. The U.S. government has approved the use of the ingredients, but the coalition said they have not been adequately tested to determine their safety.

GE Food Alert is the same group whose findings in 2000 led to the recall of Kraft taco shells containing StarLink, a gene- spliced corn not approved for human consumption. The organization is also calling for mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which the government does not currently require.

Concise and easy-to-digest coverage of the ongoing Pressplay vs. MusicNet war, courtesy of Walter S. Mossberg for the Wall Street Journal.

The verdict: Pressplay wins. (But it still sucks.)

Looks like plans are right on schedule for implementing a biometrically-fueled "trusted-traveler" program.

See:
ID card for air passengers,
by Tom Ramstack for The Washington Times.

The trusted-traveler card is part of the Aviation and Transportation Security signed by President Bush Nov. 19 that authorized the Transportation Security Administration to "establish requirements to implement trusted passenger programs and use available technologies to expedite the security screening of passengers."

Trusted-traveler cards would authorize passengers to bypass extensive security screening at airport checkpoints. The Israeli government instituted a trusted-traveler program five years ago in an effort to speed up long lines at airport security checkpoints.

The electronic card would have an encoded biometric description of the owner to ensure that the person using it is the same person identified on the card. Biometrics refers to computerized systems that identify a unique part of each person's anatomy, such as fingerprints, facial structure or irises.

Eventually, the Transportation Department task force wants the cards to be used throughout airports and transportation services internationally. The card is intended to shorten lines at airports, but FBI background checks would disseminate information about the owners to many law enforcement agencies.

This NY Post article about Terry Gross' interview with Gene Simmons is really misleading. I heard this interview over the air live as it was taking place, and these quotes were taken totally out of context, not to mention out of order.

The article also misrepresents the facts surrounding why recordings and transcripts of the interview are not available, saying "The interview was apparently so controversial that NPR has declined to make it available on its Website where it posts at least portions of nearly all other interviews that appear on "Fresh Air," one of its most popular daily shows."

Now that we've got the facts straight, I will agree that Simmons' behavior was rather surprising. I remember running into the next room to tell my friend when it happened -- but that was due to my disbelief in what Simmons' was saying, not my shock at Terry Gross' reaction to it, which was completely professional.

Gross didn't so much as raise her voice throughout the entire exchange. She conducted herself in her usual polite manner. Towards the end, she stopped speaking entirely, and just let Simmons babble away until the time ran out.

Simmons was a hostile guest to the nth degree. He was making personal attacks about NPR and Terry Gross within the first five minutes he was on the air.

Perhaps Gross' first question was a little pointed -- something about 'does he ever feel like he's hiding behind his makeup?' But this could also been seen as a fair question, considering the title of his new book is "KISS and Makeup". He was actually giving a great answer to that question for a little while. He was talking about the history behind Paul's makeup, and then Ace's makeup, and then he got to his own makeup and it was like he remembered who he was and that he had to be rude or something.

Most of the interview wasn't really about rock and roll, or women, or even the band at all. It was all about money. Simmons just could not stop talking about money: How it was the most important thing in the world. How he feels that if he has money, he can basically buy everything else -- love, sex, respect, whatever. Gross finally said a single sentence like: "you think money is the most important thing there is, huh?", and Simmons took it from there, for about 10 minutes straight. Why yes, he does feel that way, and Gross and the other bumpkins on NPR are idiots for not realizing that money is the most important thing in life. Etc. etc.

In conclusion, no one will ever know why Gene Simmons chose to insult NPR, its staff, and its entire listening audience instead of selling them all a couple hundred thousand books. Whatever the reason, the incident has left me a litle sad inside. I think, in part because I used to always have a more than a little respect for Gene Simmons -- ever since I put my first "Rock and Roll Over" sticker on my binder in the fourth grade.

Now I wish he would just grow up little.

The DMCA can't touch scientific research, for now. Thanks to the hard work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Check out Scientist Ends Crusade Against Copyright Law, by David McGuire for NewsBytes.

A Princeton University professor today announced that he would end his legal challenge of a controversial U.S. copyright law that he says was invoked to prevent him from publishing research that exposed holes in recording industry-backed anti-piracy technology.

Princeton professor Edward Felten and his team of scientists said they would not appeal a New Jersey federal court's decision to dismiss their case against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Felten announced the decision through the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has been representing his scientific team.

Although the RIAA admits that it sent a letter to Felten last year warning him that he could face prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) should he publish his research, the industry group later retracted the threat, calling the letter a "mistake."

That retraction, coupled with assurances from the U.S. government that the DMCA does not apply to scientific research, prompted the New Jersey court to dismiss the case last November.

"I think the scientists decided that they would take the RIAA at its word," EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn said of the Felten team's decision not to appeal the case. "They were quite anxious to get on with their work."

Another spammer is trying to get California's spam law overturned before it starts catching on in other states.

See:
Second Opinion Sought In California 'Spam-Law' Challenge,
by Steven Bonisteel for Newsbytes.

Darn. No room in Bush's new budget to help bridge the digital divide.

See:
Digital Divide' Plan In Peril,
by Jonathan Krim for the Washington Post.

PayPal will be going for their IPO soon. Good luck guys!

Sounds like they have a chance, too.

See the Wired News article:
Who'll Pay, Pal, for This IPO?, by Joanna Glasner.

How nice to see some coverage of blogging in the popular press.

See the Time Magazine article by Chris Taylor:
Pssst. Wanna See My Blog? .

Final Fantasy is a fantastic movie with one of the most intricate plots I have had the pleasure to experience in a long time.

Bad news though: Square USA, the studio that made Final Fantasy is closing up shop.

I believe that all the movie critics that claimed the film had a "weak story line" were either too stupid to get the plot (which is rather complex) or didn't even really watch it -- and just panned it based on the heresay of others.

I predict that the brilliance of this well scripted, brilliantly directed, plausibly depicted and meticulously executed film will get more recognition in the future. Hopefully after it is seen by more people now that it is available on DVD. (Yes I just bought it and watched it again to make sure it was as great as I remembered.)

I think it was perhaps the best film of 2001.

I'll even throw it into my top ten films of all time.

Anyway, here are the sad details, courtesy of David Briscoe for Salon. (Thanks, Cory.)

The head of the GAO says Cheney is lying about the details behind its lawsuit against him.

See the Byron York article on the National Review Online:
GAO to Cheney: You’re Lying.

In an interview with National Review Online, Walker in essence accused Cheney of lying about the GAO's demands. "There have been material misrepresentations of facts coming out of the White House in recent weeks," he says. In particular, Walker points to a statement Cheney made in a television interview last Sunday. "They've demanded of me that I give Henry Waxman a listing of everybody I meet with," Cheney told Fox News, "of everything that was discussed, any advice that was received, notes and minutes of those meetings."

"That was a very critical and highly material misrepresentation," Walker says. "If we were asking for that, I'd understand where they are coming from. But we are not."

Indeed Walker is correct, although there is a little more to it than that. At one time, the GAO did ask Cheney specifically for notes and minutes, among other things. In a letter sent to Cheney last July 18, the GAO demanded "the following information with regard to each of [the task force] meetings: (a) the date and location, (b) any person present, including his or her name, title, and office or clients represented, (c) the purpose and agenda, (d) any information presented, (e) minutes or notes, and (f) how member of [the task force], group support staff, or others determined who would be invited to the meetings."

It was a wide-ranging request, and a month later Walker backed off the demand for notes and minutes. "Even though we are legally entitled to this information," Walker wrote to Cheney on August 17, "we are scaling back the records we are requesting to exclude these two items of information." While Cheney's recent comments on television gave the unmistakable impression that GAO is still demanding the notes and minutes, Walker wants to make it clear that the GAO is not. "There should be no confusion about that," he says.

Despite the dismal headlines today, there is still nothing known for certain yet about the fate of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Perl.

See the CNN story:
E-mail claims U.S. reporter in Pakistan killed.