meta-roj

and he’s admitting it in public.

this means i need to get on the record, fast.

i knew joi ito before he was smart.

first it was stolen then it was shared. now it’s fucking up holidays.

‘Vertigo’ early? [nme.com, july 23]

If it is on the Internet this week, we will release it immediately as a legal download on iTunes, and get hard copies into the shops by the end of the month. It would be a real pity. It would screw up years of work and months of planning, not to mention f**king up our holidays. But once it’s out, it’s out.

Old Soldiers Go Back To Duty [cbs news, july 21, 2004]

At 68, John Wicks may look the part of grandfather, but at Fort Bliss, Texas, this man, old enough to collect Medicare, is in training for the part of warrior. And he is doing it at the Pentagon’s request.

…

His well-worn face is evidence of years of military service: 2 years of active duty as a Marine, 24 years in the Arkansas National Guard, and a stint as a medic in the first Gulf War.

…

Col. Charles Ham is also a psychologist. He says, “In December I got a call saying that they wanted me to go back on active duty after seven years of retirement.”

At 67 – with 4 decades of military service already under his belt – he’s bringing his uniform out of mothballs yet again.

sorry about that, guys… on the bright side, president bush is pushing 60, so maybe he will get re-activated by his national guard unit soon.

just before going on vacation, congress took a moment away from the other important issues before it, and issued a concurrent resolution on the matter of sudan.

senate concurrent resolution 124 and house concurrent resolution 467

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress–

(1) declares that the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, are genocide;

(2) reminds the international community, including the United States Government, of their international legal obligations, as affirmed in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

(3) urges the Bush Administration to call the atrocities being committed in Darfur, Sudan by its rightful name: `genocide’;

(4) calls on the Bush Administration to lead an international effort to prevent genocide in Darfur, Sudan;

(5) urges the Bush Administration to seriously consider multilateral or even unilateral intervention to prevent genocide should the United Nations Security Council fail to act;

(6) demands that the Bush Administration impose targeted sanctions, including visa bans and the freezing of assets of the National Congress and affiliated business and individuals directly responsible for the atrocities in Darfur, Sudan; and

(7) calls on USAID to establish a Darfur Resettlement, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Fund so that those driven off their land may return and begin to rebuild their communities.

bummer about all the troops being tied up in the hunt for bin laden and the weapons of mass destruction…. erm. i mean, nation [re-]building…

governor george w. bush, october 3, 2000 presidential debate

…even though we’re the strongest military, that if we don’t do something quickly, we don’t have a clearer vision of the military, if we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road.

well, at least there’s some contention between branches of government now. seems that congress thinks sudan is a serious problem. we like it when the branches of government aren’t in lock-step.

integrator

dissident

detainee

‘NOTAG’ tags bring flood of tickets [news journal, july 22, 2004]

Jim Cara wanted a vanity license tag that would make people laugh.

But when he chose “NOTAG” for the plate on his Suzuki Hayabusa, a sleek blue and silver motorcycle with a speedometer that reaches 220 mph, the joke backfired.

The new tag arrived Saturday under an avalanche of Wilmington parking violations.

“All the traffic tickets say, ‘Notice of violation. License number: no tag,’ ” Cara said.

City computers, talking to state Division of Motor Vehicles computers, had finally found an address for ticketed vehicles that lacked license tags: Cara’s home in Elsmere.

“I messed up the system so bad,” Cara said. “I wonder if they can put me in jail or something?”

….

John Rago, communications director for Mayor James M. Baker, said an incorrect computer code used by the contractor that processes the city’s parking violations helped land the tickets in Cara’s mail. City officials planned to have it corrected Wednesday, he said.

rawk.

i’m going to come back to this – it’s been waiting for me to get into full-on rant mode before i hammer it out – but i want to get this quote in here now. this guy needs to be on the record.

U.S. links 35 arrests in Iowa to terror [des moines register, july 18, 2004]

” ‘Bona fide’ terrorism is a matter of semantics,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Murphy, who heads the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Cedar Rapids. “I don’t think you can draw conclusions based on what a person is convicted of.”

maybe i’m old-fashioned and don’t get this whole post-9/11 prosecutorial environment, but i was under the impression that the whole point of convicting someone was to draw conclusions.

it appears that the lost pre-release cd from u2 is live on the p2p networks.

a statement from the band is pretty grim about the whole thing, but there’s always the outside chance that this is an aphex twin promotion. doesn’t seem likely.

i haven’t heard the tracks myself.

on the other hand, the spin so far has been interesting…

U2 Album Goes Missing … Turns Up on P2P Networks [digital lifestyles, july 19, 2004]

Having tracks available, even in unfinished form, so far in advance of the album’s release is likely to tempt many fans who would not normally lift music from P2P networks. However, even though many people will undoubtedly download the tracks using file sharing programs, it is unlikely that this alone will result in lost sales.

If the disk finds its way to a CD pressing plant, then they’ll have a problem.

Want the New U2 Album Early? [slyck, july 20, 2004]

Apparently, the band is so concerned about this (providing this is not a clever publicity stunt) that the French police have been called in to investigate the physical theft.

U2 Vertigo theft [p2pnet, july 20, 2004]

File sharers don’t need idiots literally stealing music and posting it on the p2p nets.