Myself happened to be channel flipping last night and lo and behold on the David Letterman show was none other than Secretary of State Colin Powell. Now this just seemed a bit unusual to Myself, in that a Cabinet level administrator appearing on a late night talk show to pimp the White House policy. It just seems wrong and out of place, sort of like if Ashton Kutcher were to go on Meet the Press.

Music Wars SCene 22:
In which the rebels' enabler turns the tables on the RIAA saying: Isn't it Ironic?

Link

The maker of the popular Kazaa peer-to-peer software has turned the tables on the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) and a number of entertainment companies by suing them for copyright infringement.

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The RIAA has used the same kind of "ironic" tactics, given that, earlier this month, the trade association sued 261 alleged music uploaders for copyright infringement, Morris says. "It's ironic that somebody who's suing 12-year-old girls for copyright infringement themselves blatantly disregard copyright laws," he says. "Who's being more ironic?"

Morris accuses Media Defender of using Kazaa Lite "in front of our lawyers" to demonstrate the dangers of peer-to-peer software during a congressional hearing. "He is using a hacked version of our code," Morris says. "That's a straightforward Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites) violation."

The DMCA prohibits people from reverse-engineering computer code for the purposes of cracking copyright protection technology.

Now this is getting a bit silly. Although Sharman does have a point but, the RIAA can simply use another tool to track IP's of the rebels. On the Irony scale Sharman wins, hands down, the RIAA should not be using Kazaa software or any other Kazaa clone to track users. Even though their app is used to illegally share music, there is a legitimate use for file sharing, and violating copyrights and/or violating license agreements is what the RIAA is so upset about.

Music Wars: Scene 21
In which the Empire RIAA says: oops, my bad

Among the 261 lawsuits filed by the RIAA against the rebel downloaders, are a 12-year old girl, and a 66-year old Mac user:

BOSTON - In a possible case of mistaken identity, the recording industry has withdrawn a lawsuit against a 66-year-old sculptor who claims never to have even downloaded song-sharing software, let alone used it.

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Sarah Seabury Ward, of Newbury, Mass., and her husband use their computer to e-mail with children and grandchildren, said Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Cindy Cohn, who has worked with the family. They use a Macintosh (news - web sites), which cannot even run the Kazaa file-sharing service they are accused of using illegally.

Nonetheless, Ward was one of 261 defendants sued by the recording industry this month for illegal Internet file-sharing. Ward was accused of illegally sharing more than 2,000 songs, including rapper Trick Daddy's "I'm a Thug."

Yeah those 66 year old WASP/thug chicks, are taking the big bucks out of the poor starving musicians pockets.

In a related story, new copy protection on music CD's is being considered that will thwart attempts to file-share the music. Even though it's been shown time and time again that for every copy-protection model used so far, be it for CD's DVD's or games, the protection can be cracked by savvy programmers, who are more that willing to share their results with everyone.

That's the way love goes part II

As reported earlier an incredibly stupid 20-year old was sentenced under the Patriot Act for making false threats aboard a cruise ship

A 20-year-old California woman who left two notes threatening to kill all Americans on board a cruise ship bound for Hilo was ordered to spend two years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor denied a request yesterday by Kelley Marie Ferguson, of Laguna Hills, for a more lenient sentence and instead ordered her to the maximum term possible under federal sentencing guidelines, and three years on supervised release. Ferguson had been facing 18 to 24 months in prison.
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Ferguson, who admitted to writing the notes in hopes the trip would end and she could return home to her boyfriend, later pleaded guilty to a charge of conveying false information about an attempt to cause death to passengers and employees of a mass transportation provider.
Ferguson was vacationing with her family on board the Legend of the Seas en route from Ensenada, Mexico, when the notes were discovered in a restroom on April 22 and 23.emphasis mine.

Also of note: At the time of the incident, she was pregnant, Myself, can't find anything about the baby.

Send a chicken hawk to Iraq

left-leaning Brian Flemming has issued a challenge to right-leaning Chis Arabia for him to put up or shut up when he said: If you pay my way and my hydration, incidentally, I'll happily go to Iraq and lend what help I can. Myself doubts he will go.