http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 17 Feb 2006 20:47:49 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/02/17/204749.php Thad AndersonOn July 23, 2005, I submitted an electronic Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense seeking DoD staffer Steven Cambone's notes from meetings with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. Cambone's notes were cited heavily in the 9/11 Commission Report's reconstruction of the day's events. On February 10, 2006, I received a response from the DoD which includes partially-redacted copies of Cambone's notes.The released notes document Donald Rumsfeld's 2:40 PM instructions to General Myers to find the "[b]est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time - not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]" (as discussed on p. 334-335 of the 9/11 Commission Report and in Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack).In addition, the documents confirm the contents of CBS News' Sept. 4, 2002 report "Plans For Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," which quoted Rumsfeld's notes as stating: "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not." These lines were not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report or Woodward's Plan of Attack, and to my knowledge, have not been independently confirmed by any other source. After the Rathergate fiasco, I wondered if CBS had been fooled into publishing a story that, from a publicity perspective, seemed too good to be true (see Blogcritics.org post CBS Report on Rumsfeld's 9/11 Notes Under Scrutiny). These documents prove that CBS was right on this one.Finally, these documents unveil a previously undisclosed part of the 2:40 PM discussion. Several lines below the "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. at same time" line, Cambone's notes from the conversation read: "Hard to get a good case."The documents are available as a photo set on Flickr, or to download them in PDF format, go to the post at outragedmoderates.org. Politics43773@blogcritics.org Fri, 17 Feb 2006 20:47:49 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/29/135236.php Thad AndersonEarlier this month, Colin Powell called his 2003 speech to the UN about WMD's "painful," saying that presenting false information about WMD's to the world had left a permanent blot on his record. During the last two years, the factual arguments for invading Iraq have continually faded away (e.g. - WMD's, the alleged Al Qaeda-Iraq connection, the argument that invading Iraq would decrease terrorism), leaving only emotional rationales, such as the argument that not supporting President Bush's unnecessary invasion of Iraq equates to "not supporting the troops." Now, Media Matters brings us another interesting story:On the September 27 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity and right-wing pundit Ann Coulter told co-host Alan Colmes that they "don't believe" a report that Army Ranger Pat Tillman was a fan of leftist author Noam Chomsky, opposed the Iraq war, and planned to vote for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in the 2004 presidential election. But according to a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle report that Colmes cited, Tillman's mother said that he had planned to meet privately with Chomsky and that "Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war." Tillman, a former pro football star, served in Iraq before being killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004.Hannity and Coulter, predictably, tried to blame the "liberal media":Responding to Colmes's statement that Tillman "was a Noam Chomsky fan, was going to vote for John Kerry, was against the war in Iraq," Coulter insisted, "I don't believe it." Hannity concurred, saying, "I don't believe it either." After Colmes explained that Tillman reportedly supported the war in Afghanistan but opposed the war in Iraq, Coulter responded, "I think you got that from one of those documents Mary Mapes handed to Dan Rather" -- an apparent reference to CBS' controversial report on President Bush's National Guard service, which was produced by Mapes and relied in part on unauthenticated memos. Of course, Hannity and Coulter had absolutely no factual backup for their argument.However, the Chronicle article, which focused on the military's alleged efforts to conceal facts about Tillman's death, quoted Tillman's mother, Mary Tillman, directly: Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat's even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the anti-war author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan -- a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, "Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war."The Chronicle also quoted Spc. Russell Baer, who recalled a conversation he had with Tillman during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Baer told the Chronicle, "We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f------ illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was. He totally was against Bush." Additionally, the Chronicle quoted Senior Chief Petty Officer Stephen White, who "said Pat 'wasn't very fired up about being in Iraq' and instead wanted to go fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan."In addition, the Chronicle cited an anonymous soldier who said Tillman had urged him to vote for Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.It will be interesting to see if the absurd "support all of the President's poor decisions or you don't support the troops" argument can last much longer. I wish conservatives would stop treating our troops like a bunch of mindless robots, who can't think for themselves, and can't handle anyone disagreeing with their boss. When you're in the military, your duty is to do what the Commander-in-Chief tells you to do - regardless of who is elected. When you aren't in the military, your duty is to make sure that our public servants make the right decisions, and that includes foreign policy, which is one of the President's most important responsibilities. A recent poll found that 59% of Americans believe that the U.S. "made a mistake" in sending troops into Iraq, and 67% disapproved of President Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq. Once Bush is out of office, and Americans no longer feel compelled to defend him, it will be interesting to see how much those percentages increase. Politics37074@blogcritics.org Thu, 29 Sep 2005 13:52:36 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/16/151906.php Thad AndersonJohn Roberts' legal resume is so impeccable that it is almost superhuman. He went to college at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude, and stayed for law school, graduating magna cum laude. After law school, he clerked for the legendary Judge Friendly at the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, then Justice Reinquist on the Supreme Court of the United States, and later worked as Associate Counsel to the President under Reagan. Between 1986 and 2003, he worked in private practice, and argued before the Supreme Court 39 times (to argue before the Supreme Court even once is usually considered the highlight of a legal career). Finally, he's spent the last two years serving on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which is widely considered the most important of the federal courts because of it handles most of the cases involving federal agencies.So the latest story on the Roberts' confirmation shows a refreshingly human side of the nominee - it turns out Roberts thinks Michael Jackson is annoying, just like everyone else does (well, almost everyone else). Roberts was ahead of the curve, arguing in a 1984 memo that there was no need to issue a Presidential letter praising Jackson for his community service, merely because the singer had requested one:"The office of presidential correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson's PR firm," Roberts wrote in a memo to his boss on June 22, 1984, opposing a request by the singer's publicist for a presidential letter praising the star's work against drunken driving.The Washington Post, which broke the story, couldn't resist making a reference to one of Jackson's hits: It was two decades before Jackson's celebrated legal troubles, but the prescient Roberts wanted to be startin' somethin'. A separate memo denying the request, drafted by Roberts for Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, says: "I see no need to have the president send a letter to Mr. Jackson, simply because Mr. Jackson's public relations firm has requested one." Roberts even managed to throw a jab at Jackson's music into the memo:The request came to the attention of Roberts, who wrote on Sept. 21 to Fielding: "I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson's records, constantly repeating the same refrain, but I recommend that we not approve this letter. . . . Frankly, I find the obsequious attitude of some members of the White House staff toward Mr. Jackson's attendants, and the fawning posture they would have the president of the United States adopt, more than a little embarrassing." Politics34246@blogcritics.org Tue, 16 Aug 2005 15:19:06 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/30/143147.php Thad AndersonEvery politician has a skeleton in the closet . . . but this gives "PR disaster" a whole new meaning. "As soon as I saw the face, it rang a lot of bells to me," Don Sharer, of Bedford, Indiana, told CNN. He had served as the embassy's naval attache when the hostage-taking occurred."...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more like an adviser . . ."Another hostage had more specific details about his memory of Ahmadinejad:"I saw his picture in the Washington Post on Saturday morning, recognized it immediately and then sent an e-mail out to some of my former colleagues ... telling them what I thought and seeing what kind of responses they might have to it," said William Daugherty, a former CIA officer who now lives in Savannah, Georgia . . .Daugherty said he remembers "seeing him acting in a supervisory or leadership capacity during the first ... 2 1/2 weeks (but) on the 19th day, I was moved into solitary confinement and had limited contact with even my Iranian guards after that."The allegations come after months of international debate about Iran's rapid development of nuclear power, including a facility capable of producing enriched uranium, which could be used to build advanced nuclear weapons. In January, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the Department of Defense was preparing for military operations in Iran. Politics31830@blogcritics.org Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:31:47 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/29/212943.php Thad AndersonI'm not a legal expert by any means, but I have been following this case very closely, and I'm writing a research paper on it. At the end of the day, I think the ruling is essentially fair, although what it will mean for technology manufacturers is still somewhat unclear. A brief overview of the Grokster decisionIn my view, the Justices did what they had to do: they had to attempt to draw some kind of line in the sand between Grokster/Morpheus-type software companies, which are organized around profiting from massive copyright infringement, and the wide range of other companies whose products could conceivably make them contributorily liable for infringement under a broad ruling (such as iPods, cd burners, etc.).The Court's problem? How to draw this line without throwing out the Betamax standard (from the 1984 Sony v. Universal, or Betamax, case). The Betamax standard can be restated as follows: a company is not liable for creating a technology that some customers may use for copyright infringing purposes, so long as the technology is capable of substantial non-infringing uses (paraphrased from EFF.org's Betamax page).However, "substantial non-infringing uses" were not as . . . substantial a factor as in the Grokster decision as many observers thought they would be. The Supreme Court held that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals misread the Sony v. Universal (or Betamax) doctrine (and I'm quoting the Grokster decision's syllabus here) "to mean that when a product is capable of substantial lawful use, the producer cannot be held contributorily liable for third parties' infringing use of it, even when an actual purpose to cause infringing use is shown, unless the distributors had specific knowledge of infringement at a time when they contributed to the infringement and failed to act upon that information. Sony did not displace other secondary liability theories." In other words, the Supreme Court held that the mere existence of substantial non-infringing uses of a technology does not act as a prophylactic against all contributory liability claims against the manufacturer. The Court emphasized the intent of Grokster and Streamcast (the company that runs the Morpheus P2P network) - to make money by inducing copyright infringement - and much of the opinion is dedicated to underscoring 1) the companies' advertising of their products as avenues for infringement, and 2) their business models, which rely on selling advertising space to profit off of massive infringement. Thus, while Grokster, LTD. has shown the kind of intent necessary to facilitate a contributory liability claim under the holding, someone like Bram Cohen, the computer genius who created the BitTorrent network (which is far-technologically-superior, and much more popular) and distributed it for free, probably has not. The Washington Post held a live chat Monday with Gigi Sohn, an attorney from Public Knowledge, a consumer-oriented technology think tank. The following is the question I submitted, with Sohn's response: * * * * * Queens, N.Y.: The Court seemed to put a lot of emphasis on Grokster's intent, such as their use of advertising promoting themselves as the next Napster, and their knowledge of the kind of infringement that was going on, shown in emails from executives to users. If intent is that important, would BitTorrent, which was created by a computer geek/genius, and distributed free, be viewed in a completely different light? Gigi Sohn: I would think so. BitTorrent does not appear to engage in any of the same conduct that concerned the Court in this case. I also think the fact that Grokster and Morpheus sell advertising is another important distinction. Obviously, this distinction has not stopped Hollywood from going after BitTorrent tracker sites, but I think that Bram Cohen (BitTorrent's creator) is probably safe. * * * * *As Sohn says, a BitTorrent would probably be in the clear with regards to advertising the software as an avenue for infringement, as well as the business model element of the Court's intent discussion. But there is a third prong of the Court's intent test that is worrisome. The Court held that the fact that "neither company attempted to develop filtering tools or other mechanisms to diminish the infringing activity using their software" was evidence of "unlawful objective" on the part of Grokster and Streamcast. Would BitTorrent's lack of "filtering tools or other mechanisms," combined with evidence of extensive infringement carried out using BitTorrent, be enough for contributory liability to be extended to BitTorrent? I doubt it, because the Court puts so much emphasis on the "advertising/promotion" and "business model" elements. Princeton Computer Science professor Ed Felton takes on this issue in his post, "BitTorrent: The Next Main Event." In a Salon.com article, Siva Vaidhyanathan ponders whether even a search engine like Google could be held contributorily liable under Grokster. Moreover, many tech experts are concerned about the unclear nature of the ruling, and the potential for strike suits by Hollywood against manufacturers of new technology - which could chill innovation by forcing manufacturers to fight in court or settle out of court. Cory Doctorow (of BoingBoing.net) makes the slippery slope argument in his editorial for Popular Science, "Supreme Court Strikes a Blow against P2P Sharing."While the potential chill on technology companies is a serious issue, I thought it was unrealistic to think that the Supreme Court was going to rule in favor of Grokster and Morpheus. Maybe it's because I was going in with that as a baseline assumption, but I don't think that the outcome of the Grokster decision is a doomsday scenario for P2P and similar technologies. Grokster and Morpheus are fairly extreme examples, and depending on how the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and other courts interpret the decision, Grokster's holding could be a lot narrower than some people are fearing. So what happened to the Betamax standard? Although the Court's opinion downplays substantial non-infringing uses of P2P, it doesn't throw out the Betamax standard - rather, the Court is just saying that Betamax isn't completely bulletproof, if there is overwhelming evidence that your software has an unlawful objective.The concurrences which follow the Court's opinion show how the Justices are split over the future of the Betamax standard. Justice Breyer's concurrence, which was joined by Justices Stevens and O'Connor, stresses the significant role that the Betamax standard plays in promoting innovation, and lists several good examples of non-infringing uses of P2P, including Project Gutenburg (which puts electronic books online), and Wilco's use of P2P to promote their successful album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." I hope that Breyer's concurrence (which is attached to the end of the decision) will be looked to for clarification as courts interpret the Grokster decision, rather than Ginsburg's. Ginsburg, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Kennedy, downplays the substantial non-infringing uses of P2P networks, and, as Breyer puts it, seems to advocate that the Court "interpret Sony more strictly." Perhaps the most astute, and most exciting, part of Breyer's concurrence is his discussion of the "flow" of new technologies towards non-infringing uses, which recognizes the fact that the initial use of a technology is often only one of its many eventual uses, which are increasingly developed by consumers themselves.For a wide range of commentary about Grokster, go to Ernest Miller's Day After Grokster Roundup on Corante. Miller is a real expert on technology law, and was part of the Wall Street Journal's Roundtable discussion on Grokster. Distribution of government documents via P2P As a footnote, a smaller aspect of the case I was interested in was whether there would be any mention of people using P2P to distribute government documents. The Grokster opinion's only reference to people downloading government documents over P2P was a somewhat sarcastic comment from Justice Souter, during a passage in which he is downplaying noninfringing uses of P2P. "Indeed, StreamCast has given Morpheus users the opportunity to download the briefs in this very case, though their popularity has not been quantified." I didn't realize that Morpheus had put the briefs on their network, and can't speak for them - but since I put a torrent of the Grokster briefs on the BitTorrent network on March 27th, 340 people have downloaded it, totaling over 750,000 pages downloaded. While that's obviously small potatoes compared to the amount of copyrighted music downloaded, it's unfortunate to see P2P distribution of government documents mocked as if it is an empty gesture (especially as someone who's had a noisy Gateway 2000 computer running 24 hours a day in his apartment, for the last year, solely to facilitate that). So here's more quantification, just for the record. In the 48 hours after I put the Grokster decision on the BitTorrent network, 523 people have downloaded the torrent, totaling over 28,000 pages downloaded. Over 1,624 people have downloaded the 181 MB "Return of the Fallen" torrent of Pentagon photos, representing 293 gigs of data transmitted. Another 1,300 people have downloaded the torrent of World War II documents, and another 630 have downloaded the torrent of American Revolution documents. All told, during the three-month period from March 27 to June 27, the total number of pages of documents downloaded from outragedmoderates.org via P2P was just over 3,000,000, along with several hundred hours of audio files (the Betamax oral arguments and Deep Throat's phone call with Nixon). Politics31794@blogcritics.org Wed, 29 Jun 2005 21:29:43 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/09/010147.php Thad AndersonThis BitTorrent file contains three mp3's of conversations from the Nixon Tapes involving former FBI official Mark Felt, who was recently unmasked as "Deep Throat":- a May 1972 phone call between Nixon and Felt on the attempted assassination of George Wallace - an October 1972 conversation in which Bob Haldeman tells Nixon that Felt is responsible for the FBI leaks, to which Nixon responds "Now why the hell would he do that?" - an April 1973 phone call in which Nixon rejects the suggestion that Felt be named Acting Director of the FBI BITTORRENT FILE: Nixon Tapes on FeltSIZE: 16.8 MBSOURCE: These materials are reproduced from www.nsarchive.org with the permission of the National Security Archive. For more information on the Nixon Tapes, go to the National Security Archive's "Nixon and the FBI" page. For more torrents of government documents, go to outragedmoderates.org's Government Document Library. Politics30762@blogcritics.org Thu, 9 Jun 2005 01:01:47 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/19/055357.php Thad AndersonRecently, Yahoo unveiled the beta version of its answer to iTunes, Yahoo Music Unlimited. The business model is similar to Netflix's: for a flat fee, currently set at $4.99 a month if you sign on for a year, you can download as many Windows Media Audio files (WMA's) as you want to from their selection.There are three major caveats:1) You do not gain a property right to the WMA files - so as of midnight on the day your subscription runs out, you can't play the songs any longer.2) You cannot transfer the WMA's to an mp3 player unless it is one of a dozen or so new models by the likes of Creative, Dell, and iRiver - so iPods and old Creative Jukeboxes need not apply.3) You cannot burn WMAs you have downloaded onto a cd, unless you pay another 79 cents per song for the right to burn it. I've been using Yahoo Music Unlimited for about a week or so, and I think it's pretty awesome. The songs download pretty quickly - under 10 seconds for most tracks.The fact that you don't actually get a property right to the files bothered me at first, for the same reasons I hate paying rent and would never lease a car. And I guess part of that was because I wondered if the tracks would play unpredictably, starting and stopping the way that streaming media does. But because the files are downloaded onto your hard drive, they play and sound just like an mp3, and not a preview or streaming file. I have an old Gateway 2000 hooked up to my stereo with a standard $7 cord from Radio Shack, and it sounds great.SELECTIONLike iTunes, Yahoo Music Unlimited's selection is extremely unpredictable. This is obviously mostly a consequence of the developing state of the services' contractual arrangements with labels. The most frustrating example of this has to be the Rolling Stones' catalogue: the earliest album of theirs offered is 1971's Sticky Fingers. The Stones had already released 4 or 5 masterpieces by 1971, and although 40 Licks is there to take care of a lot of the hits, I want "Monkey Man," "Please Go Home," and all the other great Stones album tracks from the 60's (a friend of mine once got into a heated argument with a stranger about whether Sticky Fingers or Exile on Main Street is a better album - but I'll take 1969's Let it Bleed over either one).The inverse of this problem happens with Led Zeppelin - while you can download some really cool Yardbirds stuff, like The Little Games Sessions (which features "White Summer," an early version of Zeppelin's "Black Mountain Side") you can't get anything from the band Jimmy Page formed just a year or two later. No "Stairway," no "Kashmir," no "The Rover."Another band that would be good to have is the Beatles. But you can't really blame this one on Yahoo - Beatles stuff always has a premium on it. And considering Jacko owns the Beatles' catalogue now, maybe it's a good thing that they don't have the Beatles. Do you really want part of your subscription fee going to this?The gaps in Yahoo's classic rock selection are made up for by impressive offerings from other heavyweights. So far, I've downloaded the Jimi Hendrix box set, the Who box set, the Cream box set, the James Brown box set, the Velvet Underground box set and the recently-released VU Quine demos, all of David Bowie's 70s albums, most of Bob Dylan's 60s albums, his three-volume Bootleg set, and that 1966 live show where the guy calls him "Judas" for playing electric guitar. I can't believe how much good music that is for five dollars a month! Each of those box sets costs about $60 - the full-year cost of Yahoo Music Unlimited - individually. Here's a quick run-down of various other things I've searched for, to provide a very inconclusive glimpse of what is and isn't included in Yahoo Music Unlimited's offerings:Southern Rock from the South: Yahoo has a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd, including a number of live versions of classics like "Sweet Home Alabama." And they have the excellent Southern Rock Opera by Alabama's Drive-By-Truckers. But they don't have anything by the garage rock duo the Immortal Lee County Killers, Alabama's wild-eyed answer to the White Stripes. Southern Rock from Canada: Yahoo has a bunch of stuff by The Band, and most of Neil Young's catalogue, including classics like Everyone Knows This is Nowhere, Tonight's the Night, and On the Beach. Ironically, Trans, the bizarre, futuristic electronic experiment that made Neil the first artist sued by his record company for making "intentionally uncommercial music," is not available by download.Bands involved in P2P legal battles - Wilco's decision to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by P2P, after their label said they didn't hear a single, has become a legendary example of how an artist can profit off of P2P, so it isn't surprising that most of their stuff is available on Yahoo's service. Terrence Trent D'Arby and Chuck D, who were parties in one of the amicus briefs submitted to the Supreme Court for Grokster are also represented in Yahoo's selection. In contrast, nothing from Metallica's catalogue is available for download, which is not surprising. Alternative/Indie Rock - Queens of the Stone Age is the only band that rocks hard enough to make lyrics like "I can go with the flow" seem badass. Yahoo has their last three albums, but not their eponymous debut, which is uneven, but has some great songs on it. Also, Yahoo has several albums from pre-Queens band Kyuss, but does not have any of the Desert Sessions side projects, which spawned demo versions of many Queens songs. Yahoo's selection in this area is very unpredictable - the service does not have anything by Radiohead, Pavement, or Fugazi, but does have Sonic Youth, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, and Unwound. Jazz - Yahoo has very impressive offerings from the likes of Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, including some of the really nice box sets, like Davis' Complete Columbia Recordings and Bitches Brew Sessions. It takes several minutes just to sort through the selection of recordings Yahoo has for Davis and Coltrane.Radar Love - Was Golden Earring French or Dutch? I was debating this topic with someone recently. At any rate, its safe to say that they were the closest a European band ever got to sounding like ZZ Top. Yahoo has a lot of great one hit wonders like this classic, and one hit wonders are one of the best things to download, because you don't really need the whole album anyway. They're missing some good ones, though, like the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind" (instead of the British Invasion-era original, Yahoo has covers by David Bowie, Johnathon Richman, and several other people). INTERFACE ISSUESYahoo Music Unlimited's interface is a downloaded Music Engine, which then connects to the internet when you want to download something, similar to the way iTunes works. While the Music Engine is relatively simple and easy-to-use, there are a couple of problems Yahoo should fix: 1) You can either click to download the entire album, or go to the album's listing and look at the available tracks. But sometimes, only some of the songs on a given album are available for download. This may be due to contractual issues in some cases, such as a compilation album or best-of, where multiple labels are involved. But the main cause of this seems to be when there are multiple copies of an album listed, where there has been a reissue or alternate version of the album released. The problem with this is that the individual songs seem to be included in Yahoo's library only once, so that clicking on the "download album" button on the "2004" version of an early 70's rock album might get you just the new bonus tracks that were added in the reissue version, but not the main album tracks themselves. To get the full album, you have to go download the other pre-reissue listing of the album, too. With some albums, there's no explanation for this double-listing. For example, when I searched for the Jurassic 5 album Power in Numbers, there were four versions of the same album listed - two with explicit lyrics, and two edited versions. Then, within both of the "explicit" or "edited" categories, there were different versions from consecutive years, with some of the tracks on one, and some of the tracks on the other.2) The other problem is that the Music Engine's connection to the online component seems to get messed up easily. For example, sometimes when you switch back and forth from "Yahoo Music Unlimited" to "My Music" on the interface (which you're going to be doing a lot if you want to play music while you're searching for more), it disconnects. And weird things happen if you accidentally log out or close the program while it is downloading. This happened while I was downloading, and the songs came out sounding distorted, and jerky like a skipping cd. That's only happened once, though, with a tiny percentage of the (seemingly millions of) songs I've downloaded. Music29738@blogcritics.org Thu, 19 May 2005 05:53:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/08/161529.php Thad AndersonTo mark the 60th Anniversary of V-E Day, I've put together a BitTorrent file containing all ten of the historical documents dated March 1941 through September 1945 in National Archives & Records Administration's "100 Milestone Documents" Collection. The torrent includes a PDF of the Surrender of Germany, signed on behalf of Germany by Gen. Alfred Rodl, specifying that German forces will cease operations at 2301 hours Central European time on May 8, 1945. WWII Historical Documents BitTorrent LinkSize: 18 MB (10 historical documents, 16 PDFs total)Contains: - The Lend-Lease Act, 1941 - Prohibition of Discrimination in Defense Industry, 1941 - FDR's Address to Congress on 12/8/1941 ("Day of Infamy" Speech) - Japanese Relocation Order, 1942 - Page from Manhattan Project Notebook, 1942 - Gen. Eisenhower's Order of the Day for 6/6/1944 - GI Bill, 1944 - Surrender of Germany, 5/8/1945 - UN Charter, 1945 - Surrender of Japan, 1945 Source: NARA's "100 Milestone Documents" CollectionBackground history on the Surrender of Germany from the National Archives:This instrument of surrender was signed on May 7, 1945, at Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters in Rheims by Gen. Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of the German Army. At the same time, he signed three other surrender documents, one each for Great Britain, Russia, and France.The unconditional surrender of the German Third Reich was signed in the early morning hours of Monday, May 7, 1945 at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) at Reims in northeastern France. Present were representatives of the four Allied Powers--France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States--and the three Germany officers delegated by German President Karl Doenitz--Gen. Alfred Jodl, who had alone been authorized to sign the surrender document; Maj. Wilhelm Oxenius, an aide to Jodl; and Adm. Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, one of the German chief negotiators. Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, SHAEF chief of staff, led the Allied delegation as the representative of General Eisenhower, who had refused to meet with the Germans until the surrender had been accomplished. Other American officers present were Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull and Gen. Carl Spaatz. After the signing of the Reims accord, Soviet chief of staff Gen. Alexei Antonov expressed concern to SHAEF that the continued fighting in the east between Germany and the Soviet Union made the Reims surrender look like a separate peace. The Soviet command wanted the Act of Military Surrender, with certain additions and alternations, to be signed at Berlin. To the Soviets, the documents signed at Berlin on May 8, 1945, represented the official, legal surrender of the Third Reich. The Berlin document had few significant changes from the one signed a day earlier at Reims.For more information, see Milestone Documents in the National Archives, "Germany Surrenders" (Washington: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1989), pp. 5-6, 8-9.Please note: the purpose of including all ten of the "100 Milestone Documents" dated from March 1941 (the Lend-Lease Act) through the September 1945 (Surrender of Japan) was to avoid making political judgments about the documents, so please do not misconstrue the inclusion of a controversial document like the Japanese Relocation Order as an endorsement of that policy, or any other form of commentary. Politics29186@blogcritics.org Sun, 8 May 2005 16:15:29 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/20/201846.php Thad AndersonTwo senior investigators from the Independent Inquiry Committee, which is investigating the UN oil-for-food scandal, resigned in protest today. According to Associated Press:Two senior investigators with the committee probing corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program have resigned in protest, saying they believe a report that cleared Kofi Annan of meddling in the $64 billion operation was too soft on the secretary-general, a panel member confirmed Wednesday. The investigators felt the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, played down findings critical of Annan when it released an interim report in late March related to his son, said Mark Pieth, one of three leaders of the committee."You follow a trail and you want to see people pick it up," Pieth told The Associated Press, referring to the two top investigators who left. The committee "told the story" that the investigators presented, "but we made different conclusions than they would have."The investigators were identified as Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan.The IIC's second interim report criticized Annan for failing to fully investigate possible conflicts of interest involving a contract that was awarded to his son Kojo's employer. The AP article states that: "Annan said the report exonerated him -- something Pieth denied at the time -- and the secretary-general said he had no plans to resign." (Click here for a 62 MB BitTorrent file containing the IIC's First and Second Interim Reports, 58 internal audit reports on the Oil-for-Food Programme, and the Committee's briefing papers and status reports.) The announcement that two oil-for-food investigators were resigning comes as President Bush's nominee for UN Ambassador, John Bolton, is under increasing fire over claims that he "bullied intelligence analysts who didn't agree with his views" while working at the State Department. These allegations could be the key factor in whether Bolton is nominated, as three Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - Hagel, Voinovich, and Chafee - have expressed concern over them. Bolton is an outspoken critic of the United Nations, and it will be interesting to see what effect, if any, this new wrinkle in the oil-for-food scandal has on the debate over the UN Ambassador position, and/or the larger debate over the role of the UN in American foreign policy. In my opinion, the recent attempts to paint the oil-for-food scandal as evidence that the UN is fatally flawed are not convincing. But it is definitely evidence that the UN needs reform. Politics28443@blogcritics.org Wed, 20 Apr 2005 20:18:46 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/17/022144.php Thad AndersonOn April 13, Eric Rudolph issued a handwritten statement explaining his motives for carrying out a series of bombings in the South during the late 90's. Rudolph's "manifesto" is both fascinating and disturbing - it is best described as a terrorist's desperate last-ditch bid for mainstream acceptance. Not surprisingly, it has a wildly inconsistent tone, fluctuating between populist rhetoric and extremist calls for violence. At several points during 11-page manifesto, Rudolph tries to hearken back to the Founding Fathers - in an attempt to justify bombings that killed two Americans, injured 123 others, and resulted in a five-year manhunt that cost American taxpayers over $20 million. Rudolph also borrows mainstream social conservative buzzwords (e.g. - "homosexual agenda") to try to rationalize acts of violence that only an infinitesimally small fraction of social conservatives would ever condone. But it doesn't take long for Rudolph to demonstrate how far outside the conservative mainstream he is - a substantial part of the manifesto is dedicated to criticizing President Bush for merely advocating pro-life views through the appropriate political avenues, and not going outside of that framework:"George W. will appoint the necessary justices to the Supreme Court and Roe will be finished, [some pro-life activists] say. All of this will be achieved through the lawful, legitimate democratic process. And every year a million and a half more die . . . The coward Bush talks about the "culture of life," but intends to effect no change with respect to Roe v. Wade."Perhaps the most unusual rhetoric comes when Rudolph paints the 1996 Atlanta Olympics as a vast conspiracy to promote "global socialism," citing, in part, the fact that the theme song was John Lennon's "Imagine." How merit-based athletic competitions that emphasize national pride promote "global socialism" is beyond me. The contradictions of this argument are borne out even further in the next sentence, which seems like Rudolph's attempt to reach out to anti-globalization activists: "Multinational corporations spent billions of dollars, and Washington organized an army of security to protect these best of all games."Finally, considering the extremely intolerant approach Rudolph takes in much of the manifesto, it is odd that he felt compelled to issue an incredibly-nuanced "look, I don't have anything against gay people" disclaimer in the same paragraph in which he calls for violent responses to the gay rights movement:"Homosexuality is an aberrant sexual behavior, and as such I have complete sympathy and understanding for those who are suffering from this condition. Practiced by consenting adults within the confines of their own private lives, homosexuality is not a threat to society. Those consenting adults practicing this behavior in privacy should not be hassled by a society which respects the sanctity of private sexual life. But when the attempt is made to drag this practice out of the closet and into the public square in an 'in your face' attempt to force society to accept and recognize this behavior as being just of legitimate and normal as the natural man/woman relationship, every effort should be made, including force if necessary, to halt this effort."While a number of newspapers and websites have posted Rudolph's manifesto, I have only come across one that posted the "postscript," the Charlotte Observer. The postscript is less ambitious (if that's the word) than the manifesto, but at least as interesting. In the postscript, Rudolph criticizes various "misconceptions" he claims were spread by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent and CNN reporter who wrote "Hunting Eric Rudolph," saying that much of their information comes from his brother's ex-wife, Debbie Rudolph, who he considers to be an unreliable source. Rudolph claims that: "Debbie has a penchant for bars, infidelity, and cocaine." Rudolph also uses the postscript to deny being seriously involved with the Christian Identity religious/white supremacist group. He says that he attended their church for 6 months, but that he went just because the girl he was dating did. And he admits that he dealt marijuana, but claims that he was a small-time dealer:"Stone claims that I am a major marijuana grower selling as much as 50 pounds a year. Yes, this is why I was living in a trailer paying $275 a month for rent. Big time drug dealer, that's me."There's also an anecdote about whether a ziplock bag that was confiscated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation contained marijuana or collard greens. Although I don't know anything about the facts of this incident, I have a feeling the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's response would be that they've heard that one before. Below is the postscript, reprinted from the Charlotte Observer:PostScriptApril 13, 2005"As a postscript I would like to clear up some misconceptions about me which are based upon the false information, innuendoes and lies disseminated by some unscrupulous individuals. A recent book written by former GBI agent Charles Stone and CNN reporter Henry Schuster carries many of these lies and misconceptions. The purpose and intent of the book was quite clear to use lies and distortion in order to prejudice the public against me and thereby pollute any potential jury that was to be chosen for the trial. This book was written by a former agent who was sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And a part of this Constitution guarantees a defendant the right to a fair trial. He makes a mockery of this Constitution he was sworn to protect and uphold For example, in his book he says that my brother, after listening to the 911 call made the night of the Park blast, positively identified my voice. This is a lie he knows this, for the discovery 302s (FBI documents) state the opposite. Stone, knowing that I couldn't answer this lie before trial, hoped that this lie would convince any potential juror that I had to be guilty, because after all my own brother identified my voce on the 911 tape.The unethical agent Stone and his hack coauthor Schuster base much of their conclusions on or about my beliefs and lifestyle on information given to them by Deborah Givens (she calls herself Deborah Rudolph). Based upon this unreliable source they falsely characterize me as an Identity believing Christian who made my living growing and selling marijuana, and became violent because of my paranoid beliefs and my massive ingestion of marijuana. They write that my father who contracted cancer sought out an unconventional treatment (laetrile), and they claim that because the US. government didn't approve of this particular treatment for cancer, this was the {quot}trigger{quot} that set me off. Wisdom is exceptional, but ignorance is almost universal. Stone's book is an excellent example of the latter.I am not now nor have I ever been an Identity believing Christian. I was born a Catholic, and with forgiveness I hope to die one. It is true that for one six month period in 1984 I did live near and attend a church that holds to the Identity doctrine. The purpose for my prolonged stay at this church was because I met a wonderful young lady whose father attended the church. We became engaged for that short time, but when the relationship ended, I left the church and I do not believe I have talked to an Identity believer since that period in the early 1980's.While attending this church I never bought into the convoluted Identity argument of racial determinism. I believe that human beings are spirit and ideas and the important conflicts in this world, and probably the next are about ideas, not flesh. For example I oppose the idea, philosophy and the spirit behind the horror of abortion and will accept as my comrade any manor woman of whatever race who joins me in this fight. Racial determinism is a day before yesterday idea, a product of Darwinism an the 19th century and its obsession with biological determinism. We are not our bodies, but rather we are spirits on a temporary sojourn in the world of flesh.Stone tries to tie me to Nord Davis who was a character who ran a local militia style group in the Andrews area. Apparently he was an Identity believer. Most local residents in the Murphy Andrews area had heard of Nord Davis and knew him by sight.He was primarily a petty con man and had a little Ponzi scheme and was constantly looking for investments in his latest fraud. Even though, like most1people I knew him by sight, in all the years I lived in the Andrews area I never spoke two words to Nord Davis, let alone joined his little group.Stone claims that I am a major marijuana grower selling as much as 50 pounds a year. Yes, this is why I was living in a trailer paying $275 a month for rent. Big time drug dealer, that's me. The truth is that when I left Washington's army in 1989 I did cultivate marijuana in the early 1990's but was never a big time grower and it did not constitute the major source of my income as he suggests. I hated every aspect of the marijuana trade except for the great deal of time where I grew it in the woods. Happily I left that lifestyle behind me years ago.An interesting footnote to Stone's marijuana angle is the assertion that there was a large bag of pot found at my campsite. After I was captured in Murphy is 2003, my campsites were searched, and the items found there were inventoried. Among the items was a trash bag with a dry, green leafy substance in it. The agent, perhaps the redoubtable agent Stone, labeled the material {quot}suspected marijuana.{quot} When the FBI took this bag of {quot}suspected marijuana{quot} back to their lab, they analyzed it and did whatever they do with such things. And, to and behold, they discovered it to be {quot}vegetable matter{quot} collard greens. That's right, collard greens. Thirty five years of police work and agent Stone can't tell the difference between grass and greens.The laetrile explanation is laughable, and not worth extended comment except to say that when my father was diagnosed with cancer, I was not even old enough to know what laetrile was let alone be aware of any controversy surrounding its use.Stone and Schuster admit their chief source of family background information came from a woman calling herself Deborah Rudolph. (She still insists upon using this surname despite being divorced from my brother for many years now.) Debbie Givens which is her actual name was married to my brother in the early 1980's, much to the consternation of our family. Debbie has a penchant for bars, infidelity, and cocaine. She developed a deep animosity for me because I was one of the only family members to visit my brother and was on the front lines to get my brother to leave her She knew this was my design; she hated me. And, hence the reason for her appearance on television to spread. lies and distortion about me. Finally, even his long suffering nature was not enough to block out her repeated, multiple infidelities, and he divorced her over twelve years ago. This was the last time I laid eyes on Debbie Givens." Politics28245@blogcritics.org Sun, 17 Apr 2005 02:21:44 EDT