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"On Thursday, Warner Music Group began selling music on Amazon in the MP3 format without the digital rights management that hampers many of the files sold in iTunes and other online music stores."
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/12/warner-music--1.html
"It should be noted that FIRE isn't, as some of its partisan critics contend, a conservative organization or a legal cudgel for the political right. Indeed, a look through its recent case load shows that while the attempted silencing of conservative viewpoints are overrepresented on campus, the group has defended protesters and political activists on both sides of the ideological divide."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/124072.html
"Ron Paul is a nut, and his supporters are crackpots. If you are a conservative, it is better to support Obama or Clinton than Paul, and if you are a progressive, it is better to support Giuliani, McCain, Romney, or Huckabee than Paul. Because if you are a reasonable Democrat or Republican, you acknowledge and embrace several core ideas that have evolved over the past century, which Paul has the audacity to question."
http://www.partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=2780
"Any future expansion of money would be done by private banks, which would issue private dollars convertible into Federal Reserve dollars. The convertibility at a fixed rate, one for one, would prevent inflation, since the banks could not expand their private notes by more than the public is willing to hold. "
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/003131.html
"Publishing a Year in Review article ahead of the traditional early January timeframe is tantamount to some rogue state moving its primary elections ahead of the Iowa Caucus. A mainstream newspaper doing such a thing would certainly be punished by having its delegation to the national Pulitzer convention cut in half. News with commentary follows."
http://www.freecannon.com/JeerInReview.htm
"As 2007 winds down, it is time to look back at the year in drug policy. Here at Drug War Chronicle, we cranked out more than 500 stories about every aspect of drug policy in the US and around the world this year. But if we have to narrow it down to a handful of domestic and international stories or trends, the following are what we pick."
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/516/2007_top_ten_major_stories_in_the_drug_war
"So just how dangerous is police work? Generally, police are about three times as likely to be killed on the job as the average American. It isn't among the top ten most dangerous professions, falling well behind logging, fishing, driving a cab, trash collecting, farming, and truck driving. Moreover, about half of police killed on the job are killed in traffic accidents, and most of those are not while in pursuit of a criminal or rushing to the scene of a crime. ... So take out traffic accidents and other non-violent deaths, and you're left with 69 officers killed on the job by criminals last year."
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124117.html
"What ever happened to the social phenomenon known as 'neighbor'? It moved out of the neighborhood sometime around 1960. If I were to blame a single factor, it would be government-subsidized mortgages. When the Federal government created insurance for depositors in savings & loans, it subsidized the destruction of community. "
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north594.html
"Choosing between evils means you choose an evil, and I refuse to take on such responsibility. The fact that the political system is a system for creating a sense of legitimacy for power and rule should make it clear to all libertarians that the involvement in such a system (and thereby support of it) is not compatible with the non-aggression principle."
http://www.perbylund.com/blog/?p=35
"The truth is, if you do not produce your papers and pay the man, one way or another, sooner or later, you will experience the violence of the state. It’s pretty simple. They will taser you, prod you, beat you, hand and foot cuff you, incarcerate you and allow you to be raped in prison or water-boarded abroad. They’ll lock you up in a concrete cell and feed you garbage that you wouldn’t feed your dog. If you refuse to eat it, they will force-feed you because you do not own your own life. They will even ceremoniously execute some of you from time to time. It’s all for security, the greater good and the provision of essential services, of course!"
http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/fontana/fontana9.html
"The people with all their many skills, their knowledge, their economy, their drives, their associations, and so on remain intact. We merely need to rid ourselves of an unnecessary and counter-productive encumbrance. The country will function better without Congress and the Constitution than with it."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff187.html
"This is not a call for a privatization or reformation of the FCC; it is a recommendation for its abolition. Along with alternative arbitration venues, the current court system could handle any disputes arising from this action. The FCC should not be in the business of gerrymandering the electromagnetic spectrum; rather, it should be left to private firms to homestead the infinitesimal frequencies and solve any and all problems in courts: just like property disputes on parcels of land."
http://www.mises.org/story/2815
"[I]f the financial crisis at home has accentuated US geo-economic weakness in the form of massive deficits, a weak dollar and rising oil prices, the mess in Iraq and the continuing tension with Iran and other global military diplomatic problems like North Korea expose the erosion in US geo-strategic power. It is less likely that the Americans will be able to fight two major wars around the world at the same time. To put it differently, the US has less of the kind of economic and military leverage it used to employ in the past in order to affect the global balance of power. "
http://www.antiwar.com/hadar/?articleid=12129
"An MIT initiative called 'OpenCourseWare' makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free - lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. Strang's Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone."
"Dr. Kessler says the Food and Drug Administration needs to undertake an effort similar to one it did when he was commissioner in the 1990s, when it amended the drug- approval process to speed approval of AIDS-drug combinations. 'What's missing today is leadership.' ... A growing number of people won't wait any longer. Thanks to the Internet, they can read about scientific discoveries, track down scientists and doctors and share information and personal experiences. "
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=6266
"The dramatic antibiotic success of agricur, a clay made from ancient volcanic ash found in the mountains of central France, marks it out as a potential rival to penicillin, the wonder drug of the 20th century. In experiments, the clay killed up to 99 per cent of superbug colonies within 24 hours. Control samples of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) grew 45-fold in the same period."
http://www.newstarget.com/022422.html
"Americans live in a world of propaganda designed to secure their acquiescence to war crimes, torture, searches and police state measures, military aggression, hegemony and oppression, while portraying Americans (and Israelis) as the salt of the earth who are threatened by Muslims who hate their 'freedom and democracy.' Americans cling to this 'truth' while the Bush regime and a complicit Congress destroy the Bill of Rights and engineer the theft of elections."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12272007.html
"The administration has admitted that several prisoners have been killed in interrogation, and dozens more have died in the secret network of interrogation sites the US has set up across the world. The policy of rendition has sent countless suspects into torture cells in Uzbekistan, Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere to feed the West’s intelligence on jihadist terrorism. But this case is more ominous for the administration because it presents a core example of what seems to be a cover-up, obstruction of justice and a direct connection between torture and the president, the vice-president and their closest aides."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3086937.ece
"We are understandably reluctant to believe the worst of our leaders, and this tends to make us negligent. After all, we learned from former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill that drastic changes were made in U.S. foreign policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue and toward Iraq at the first National Security Council meeting on Jan. 30, 2001. Should we not have anticipated far-reaching changes at home as well?"
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/122707a.html#When:12:20PM
"You don't have to be a law student to know that in 2005, when the CIA destroyed hundreds of hours of videotapes of 'coercive interrogations' in its secret prisons—including waterboarding and other tortures—the obliteration of hard evidence was criminal obstruction of justice."
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0752,hentoff,78715,6.html
"Every four years the country is swept up in the pomp and pageantry of presidential elections. And every four years loyal Americans flock to the voting booths to select the candidate of their choice. Elections, we are told, are the true expression of democratic government. But they aren’t. They’re a sham and most people know it. The balloting creates the illusion of choice where there is none. It’s a meaningless ritual that has nothing to do with representative government."
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/the-butchers-apron/
"The paradigm that best describes what is happening on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire, and beyond, isn't 'right' versus 'left,' 'Christianism' versus secularism, or red-versus-blue state mindsets, but populist demands for change against our hidebound, insular, arrogant elites in the media as well as in government. "
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12124
"In order to understand anything about American political affairs, it is necessary to have some understanding of who it is that really makes the decisions behind the scenes, and what their interests are. In this way we have some hope of identifying the hidden agendas being served by government actions and programs, and some hope of identifying the longer-term strategies that are in play. It turns out—and informed people should already know this—that the U.S. is essentially owned and managed by a small clique of wealthy families—the ones who own and control the Federal Reserve. The Rockefellers are the obvious and well-known members of this clique, but there are others less well-known, not all American, and some whose identity remains to this day a carefully guarded secret. We don’t even know exactly who it is that’s running the show. "
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MOO20071227&articleId=7693
"On November 28, reason sat down for a discussion with one of the masters of the dark arts of politics, Roger Stone. Many people in Washington, D.C. talk about “hardball politics,” but no one has done so with as much skill, creativity, flair, and stomach-turning dedication as veteran political strategist and dirty tricks expert Roger Stone."
http://www.reason.tv/video/show/212.html
"With ticket receipts soaring and online music more popular than ever, why is live concert webcasting -- which sits squarely at the intersection of these trends -- still lagging? After showing early promise at the turn of the millennium, webcasters' path to success was slowed by three major roadblocks having to do with technology, audience and record labels. The good news for music fans is that all three will likely give way in 2008."
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commentary/listeningpost/2007/12/listeningpost_1224
"The seemingly inefficient way our bodies replace worn-out cells is a defense against cancer, according to new research (see also Cancer). Having the neighboring cell just split into two identical daughter cells would seem to be the simplest way to keep bodies from falling apart. However that would be a recipe for uncontrolled growth, said John W. Pepper of The University of Arizona in Tucson. "
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=6272
"A driving permit issued by an insurer or an insurance industry-affiliated organization would not provide a path to citizenship and could not be used as an identity document. But it would improve safety. This is not a far-fetched idea. Placing responsibility on insurers is common in maritime transportation, for example, where safety is taken seriously - and ships and ships’ officers are tested and licensed by Lloyds of London and other insurers. Because they could be held liable for any injuries caused or suffered by those they license, insurers would have compelling incentives to keep unsafe drivers and vehicles off public roads and probably would do it better than the government agencies now responsible."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2093
"[O]rganizations such as the Weston A. Price Foundation promote grass-based farming because of the superior nutritional value of the foods it produces. EatWild.Com promotes it for its benefits to animals, farmers, and the environment as well. Consumer pressure based on these concerns provides an additional incentive for farmers to turn to grass-farming."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/masterjohn3.html
"Everybody plans. But private plans are flexible, and we happily change them when new information arises. In contrast, special-interest groups ensure that the government plans benefiting them do not change -- no matter how costly. Like any other organization, government agencies need to plan their budgets and short-term projects. But they fail when they write comprehensive plans (which try to account for all side effects), long-range plans or plans that attempt to control other people's land and resources. Many plans try to do all three."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8868
"[B]efore you call me a crazed conspiracy theorist, consider this amazing coincidence. The main company that stands to benefit from a law—passed in the name of the patriotic war on drugs—that effectively marginalizes [its] main competition and gives a boost to its inferior product spent millions in lobbying and campaign donations in the very year that the law was passed. There is no record of any substantial spending before the push for the law began, and spending has been declining since the law passed."
http://www.mises.org/story/2827
"Practically everywhere we look there is a crisis. Public schooling: crisis. The drug war: crisis. Social Security: crisis. Medicare and Medicaid: crisis. Immigration: crisis. Iraq: crisis. Terrorism: crisis. Federal spending: crisis. The dollar: crisis. So many crises! Yet there is a common denominator to all these crises. Focusing on that common denominator provides the key to extricating ourselves from all of them."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0709a.asp
"[A]s I show, we have many new rules and regulations that handcuff the invisible hand of the market and instead, in subtle, sometimes hidden, ways, extract money from the pockets of the many and funnel it to the politically connected few. It’s the very thing that Adam Smith said would ruin the benefits of markets."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/124116.html
"War is a racket. The military budget is absolutely huge after you add up the usual budget, the expenditures for the current wars, the intel outfits, the black programs, the Veterans Administration, and Homeland Security. Each of these jelly jars attracts its swarm of hungry bees. Always a new weapon is needed. Some threat pullulates in the darkness, ready to defeat the weapons we have. Some of these programs become virtual kingdoms. A fighter can take a quarter century to develop at wonderful cost. Then you get to produce it for decades perhaps, and sell spare parts and upgrades and then you slep it (Service Life Extension Program, become a verb). Money, money, money. An occasional war provides plausibility."
http://fredoneverything.net/RalphPeters.shtml
"Before World War II individuals who owed federal tax on their income earned in a particular year paid the tax during the following year in quarterly installments. In those days relatively few people paid income taxes. As late as 1939 fewer than four million individual returns were filed, and the filers’ total tax bill came to less than $1 billion, or less than 4 percent of their net taxable income. When so few people paid income tax and the amounts due in most cases were so small, the system of deferred payment imposed no great burden and gave rise to few taxpayer complaints."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2092
"The powers that be that run and benefit from this hypocritical and corrupt government can be seen as the shepherds, and the masses of people can be seen as the sheep. And as the French writer Marie-Henri Beyle wrote, 'The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interest and his own are the same.' Of course, the shepherd really only wants to take the fleece off their backs and eventually kill them. "
http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/johnson/johnson6.html
"Every major candidate, with the exception of Ron Paul, wants to be seen as the strong anti-terror candidate who has the knowledge of Pakistani politics and world affairs and who can step in at a moment’s notice and handle the situation. In other words, they assure the American public that they too will continue the failed interventionist policies of the U.S."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff188.html
"The importance of the centuries-old, hard-won principle of habeas corpus as a bulwark against tyranny cannot be exaggerated — for what good is a bill of rights if those whom the government imprisons may not publicly contest their detention? Isn’t the absence of habeas corpus a defining characteristic of despotism?"
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0709b.asp
"I don't know much about him -- just that I bought a copy of Encore at the Blue Note many years ago and it's a heck of a good album. Here's a clip of the man at work...." [Excellent jazz piano]
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124100.html
"A new book claims to have definitive evidence of a long-suspected technological crime - that Alexander Graham Bell stole ideas for the telephone from a rival, Elisha Gray."
http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/T/
TECHBIT_BELL_BOOK?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
"Before Menger, various German economists had criticized the labor theory of value specifically and rejected the doctrine of inherent value in general. Menger's view that value was subjective (personal, individual) in nature was not exceptional among German authors of the first half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, some of them even knew the principle of marginal subjective value."
http://www.mises.org/story/2799
"U.S. troops have absolutely no business overseas, period. They should not be fighting in Iraq, drinking beer in Germany, or playing golf in Okinawa. Everyone in the military joined voluntarily, knowing that he might be deployed overseas. Yet, even in the midst of an unpopular debacle of a war in Iraq, over 181,000 people still joined the military this past year. What we don’t hear much about this time of year is the emotional pain and heartache felt by parents, grandparents, spouses, siblings, and children who have to suffer through a military Christmas because one of their loved ones is either thousands of miles away or dead – courtesy of the U.S. military."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance129.html
"Roman Kuzniar, the head of the strategic studies department at Warsaw University, said that while the Polish contingent in Afghanistan is part of NATO's peacekeeping mission, Polish troops have been made subordinate to U.S. troops, impairing the quality of the Polish mission. 'It was certain that our soldiers would soon adopt the methods of combat of their American superiors and colleagues. These methods involve ignoring completely all rights and limitations under international humanitarian law,' Kuzniar wrote in the Nov. 21 edition of Warsaw Dziennik. Recent statements by U.S. President George Bush have done little to improve Washington's image in Poland. "
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,159066,00.html
"Although observers and candidates have deplored the setback to democratic aspirations, few have discussed the impact on U.S. interests in the region or how skillfully the U.S. has tried to promote those interests. This tragic and cruel assassination could be a catalyst for the United States to reassess the state of its empire and reconsider whether it is prepared to commit increasing amounts of blood and treasure to the somewhat unfocused desire to make the world a more democratic and stable place."
http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=12130
"What would be the consequences of a U.S. military attack against Iran's nuclear program? Likely one of the first would be another blow to the international credibility of the United States. Absent authorization from the U.N. Security Council, such an attack would not only be a violation of international law, it would run counter to the Algiers Accords."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8865
"Haffner is considered as one of the most successful German authors on the history of the 19th and 20th century written for a broad, nonacademic audience. He wrote most of his works in German, some of which have been translated into English. The manuscript of Defying Hitler, discovered posthumously by his son, is an insightful memoir of the Nazis' rise to power, as witnessed by Haffner before he went into exile."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Haffner
"At the age of 10, José's family moved to Brooklyn, New York where he was raised. José was studying painting, however, dance caught his eye when he accompanied his sister to her dance classes. He demonstrated a quick sense for learning footwork...."
http://www.josegrecofoundation.org/history.html
"Serling quickly realized that to get a point across often meant creating scripts that contained controversial messages and dialogues. Corporate sponsors, on the other hand, had no desire to have their products matched with messages that might be deemed offensive. ... Because of the hostile creative environment Serling began to see the advantages of writing science fiction and fantasy. ... Out of this realization came the television series The Twilight Zone, 1959-64, on which Serling and other writers would enjoy unprecedented artistic freedom."
http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/rodserling.html
"The late Esther Phillips unquestionably falls into the realm of great singers who never received recognition for what was a lifelong contribution to contemporary music."
http://www.soultracks.com/esther_phillips.htm
"Josey: Governments don't live together. People live together. Governments don't give you a fair word or a fair fight. I've come here to give you either one. Or get either one from you... I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another... Ten Bears: It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double-tongues. "
http://uncabob.blogspot.com/2007/12/outlaw-josey-wales-doin-right-aint-got.html
"Movies, being a collaborative form of art, are especially difficult. The contributions of so many people have to mesh perfectly. It doesn't occur all that often, despite the best efforts. To see the magic created when everything does mesh, check out the old Elia Kazan film On the Waterfront [or almost anything else from Kazan]. A good test of any art is, do you feel better after experiencing it? If not, why bother?"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese423.html
"Joss Whedon has revealed that a new sci-fi series featuring his BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER star Anthony Head is still in the works at the BBC. Whedon, creator of BUFFY and ANGEL spoke to Sci-Fi magazine about the show, previously known as RIPPER...."
"Dell m1330 'Devo' Ad -- Ben Curtis used to be the most interesting part of Dell's marketing — but drug enforcement laws put an end to that." [I also particularly like #3, #4 and especially #5 ]
"It was a year that strode boldly into the stall of human events and took a wide stance astride the porcelain bowl of history."
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/359770.html
"Will Ferrell could be spending his time making more movies about fictitious, obnoxious public figures, or he could just sit around spending his money on people to help him spend money on devices that help him figure out how to spend all his money. But instead, the man keeps it real with the young people by putting videos up on the web."
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/multimedia/2007/12/YE_onlinevideo2007?slide=9&slideView=10
"Where did palindrome come from?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8FKg1n8WAg
"As Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest reigning monarch in British history, we take a look at some of her most significant waving moments."
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/queen_elizabeth_ii_will_leave
"Welcome to the first annual Wired News rundown of the year's 10 most important scientific breakthroughs. 2007 was an amazing year for science. ... Here we count down the top 10 scientific discoveries that rocked our Wired world the hardest this year."
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/YE_10_breakthroughs
"[W]hile no one this side of sociopathy doubts the importance of keeping each of us from infringing willy-nilly on each other's rights, too many people regard organized infringement to be just fine. Indeed, some call it 'progressive'."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/guests/s_544746.html
"If a scientific paper appeared in a major journal saying that the planet has warmed twice as much as previously thought, that would be front-page news in every major paper around the planet. But what would happen if a paper was published demonstrating that the planet may have warmed up only half as much as previously thought? Nothing. Earlier this month, Ross McKitrick from Canada's University of Guelph and I published a manuscript in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres saying precisely that. "
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8863
"Based on the known properties of the materials used and the behavior of quantum dots, the researchers predict that they will be able to make quantum dots that can store data for one million years with an access time of 10ns."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071226-the-perfect-computer-memory.html
"The surging popularity of smartphones, a boom in online advertising and the rapid growth of social networks helped propel Apple, Google and Facebook into the headlines in 2007. But who's going to win big in 2008? To answer that question, you need to look at the major tech trends affecting business in the coming year."
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/12/YE_stealth_genius
"[A]s I recall, Dr. Libertarian Savior supports the border wall, which is hardly a curtailment of the exactions of the state. But the larger issue is the more important one, in my view: I am not content with curtailing the state; I want to see it shrivel and die. Thus, anyone who seeks the office of president—or any other position of coercive power—is worthy of suspicion to me."
http://www.sunnimaravillosa.com/node/1290
"If you forgot to get a Christmas present for Charlie Rangel, don’t worry. The congressman picked one out for himself, and he’s sending you the bill: $2 million for a shiny new Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College. The New York Democrat’s Monument to Me was one of about 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill Congress approved before going on vacation. Most represented a more subtle form of self-aggrandizement, aimed at maintaining power and prestige by currying favor with voters."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/124088.html
"It wouldn't be a Cringe awards column without flashing a great big moon in the general direction of Redmond. Nearly a year after Vista's debut people are still debating whether the new OS was a step forward for the company, two steps back, or possibly just some weird spasmodic attack that hopefully will pass. No matter, because we're stuck with it. Though PC makers are selling XP systems longer than they (or Microsoft) thought they would, those of us who don't migrate to Mac or leap to Linux will be using Vista eventually."
http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/2007/12/best_worst_2007.html
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