Falling down

Salon: We were both professionals. Now I'm sweeping up popcorn, my husband is selling motorcycles, and our house is on the block. There are a lot of us these days.

Music piracy on the global stage

NY Times: U.S. Is Only the Tip of Pirated Music Iceberg.

Today's presidential debate

Watching the Democrats' presidential debate tonight on MSNBC (TiVo'd, of course, so I can fast-forward through Kucinich and Graham). Quick impressions:

- The winner tonight seemed to be Gen. Wesley Clark, not because of any rhetorical flourish, but because he didn't stumble. In fact, he acquitted himself pretty well and seemed not out of place on the podium, despite being a politician for all of nine days.

- It seemed by far the best showing for the two Johns, Edwards and Kerry. It may be too late for Edwards, but Kerry's still showing some life. His attacks on Dean seemed a little shrill, though, as both of them are positioning to become two of the last men standing in late January (Clark vs. Kerry or Clark vs. Dean).

- Dean seemed to be on the defensive most of the night. (And why has he forgotten to smile?) He's got to get off the "repeal all the Bush tax cuts" meme and get behind a tax cut or exemption for working families and the middle class. I don't see a national constituency coalescing behind a platform of tax hikes in favor of expanded health care and a balanced budget. He's also got to stop the somewhat elitist suggestion that $325 or $1,000 in taxes doesn't really matter to ordinary Americans. Yes, their property taxes and school tuitions have gone up, but those higher taxes and fees aren't going away. The Dean brain trust needs to do some work.

- Brian Williams (probably my favorite network anchor, though he's invisible at MSNBC) proved a terrific moderator, with measured tones and timely humor. The journalists asking the questions were outstanding.

Here's some press coverage:

- Slate: It's the First Debate of the General Election. So, why are the Democrats ignoring Wesley Clark.

- Salon: Democratic rivals target Bush -- and Dean.

- Minneapolis Star Tribune: Clark makes debut with Democratic presidential opponents.

'Hollywood magic' for home video

I don't generally run press releases for new products, but I'm a big fan of multimedia software that encourages personal creativity. I think we'll see an explosion in home moviemaking over the next five years. So this may be a little ahead of the curve, but perhaps there's already a market for licensed soundtrack music for homemade film shorts and family videos.

Richard Manfredi, PR director for SmartSound Software, passes along word that this week SmartSound released five new music CDs in its Movie Music library. Says Richard:

These tracks are designed for use with SmartSound's Movie Maestro soundtrack creation software, and feature moods and styles that are a great fit for any home video creator who wants a Hollywood soundtrack for their projects. Movie Maestro is an ingenious software product that creates soundtracks that exactly fit any length of video footage, with the user needing to be a music expert.

'We Media' in html

Shayne Bowman over at Hypergene Media has formatted an HTML version of the New Directions for News report "We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information." Previously it was available just in PDF form.

Dean declares war on King George

Salon has reprinted excerpts from Howard Dean's campaign speech at Copley Square in Boston on Tuesday: Dean declares war on "King George." Presidential candidate Howard Dean calls upon today's Sons of Liberty to overthrow a government that is "of, by and for the special interests."

When journalists don't credit their sources

Rafat Ali, editor of paidContent.org, makes a good point today that's worth underlining. Let him tell it:

It is amazing how major, respectable media companies like CNET News and AP don't know how to credit stories, especially stories done by small media/ trade sites. The Red Herring resurrection story was done by me on Sep 9, after a long, hard investigation. And they pick up the story, have no attributions, and never mentioned that I reported on it first. A very similar thing happened to me with the KeepMedia story: I did it on June 30, after another long investigation, and then the Wall Street Journal picks it up on July 21, writes this whole big story, and never credits me. I e-mailed the reporter, who said he never did know I did the story. I can understand that, but in this day and age of Google, any half-wit reporter would put some keywords in Google and find out if anyone else has done anything on it before. For instance, click on these Google keywords: "Red Herring Relaunch" and "KeepMedia". We call it research.

Anyway, I find it strange then when other blogs write about the stories I have done, they ALWAYS credit me, but when traditional news orgs pick it up, they never do (except CBS Marketwatch!). Some who do, fail to ever link back to the site, the most basic, fundamental backbone of the Internet.

Please, take this is a public warning and a challenge: all you journalists who read my stories and don't credit, I will hunt you down and bring it to the court of public opinion. Enough of you guys milking the actual people who break the news. All I am asking is for a credit, like I do religiously when I pick up news from other sources. My whole raison d'Ítre is crediting other news sources.

Right on, Rafat! As a newsroom veteran, I've encountered this on far too many occasions. I made a similar point in a panel discussion on weblogs one year ago:

[With weblogs] you can see the origins of a story as it works its way through the media ecosystem, whereas in traditional journalism you're taught to slap a second-day lead on a story, and the reader doesn't get the context of how that story originated.

When I made that remark, Dan Gillmor leaned over and asked me, "Do you really think that happens a lot?" Yes, and as Rafat suggests, it's happening more often with bloggers.

Thanks to Steve Outing for the original pointer on this.

Our media multitasking teens

Cory B. in Lost Remote points to this study about our very media multitasking teens. "More than 60 percent of teens say they regularly go online while watching TV." And I thought it was just me.

A copyright ethics quiz

From the Chicago Tribune comes this copyright ethics quiz. At 28 questions, it's too long, but it zooms in on some important questions facing society. Example:

You bought the vinyl LP years ago. Now you no longer have a turntable. Is it OK to download the album or burn a copy from a friend's CD without paying for it?

Fascinating stuff. Chicago Tribune blogger Eric Zorn, who devised the poll, has an accompanying column about digital rights and copyright, "an area of law with lots of wrinkles, few sharp boundaries and enormous gray areas." And Eric's blog points us to a sampling of national surveys on the subject.

I don't know how long the blog poll will be up so, ironically perhaps, I'm reposting the results to date below.

1. You hear or hear about a song that you think youíd like to have. Is it OK to download that song from a free file-sharing site on the web?

A. Yes, always (38%)
B. Yes, but only occasionally (20%)
C. No (42%)

2. You hear or hear about an entire album that you think youíd like to have. Is it OK to download that album from a free file- sharing site on the web?

A. Yes, always (22%)
B. Yes, but only occasionally (10%)
C. No (68%)

3. You hear or hear about a song that you think youíd like to have. Is it OK to burn a copy of that song from a CD that a good friend bought?

A. Yes, always (53%)
B. Yes, but only occasionally (17%)
C. No (30%)

4. You hear or hear about an album that you think youíd like to have. Is it OK to burn a copy of that album from a CD that a friend bought?

A. Yes, always (43%)
B. Yes, but only occasionally (16%)
C. No (42%)

5. You bought the vinyl LP years ago. Now you no longer have a turntable. Is it OK to download the album or burn a copy from a friend's CD without paying for it?

A. Yes, you paid for the music once and that's enough (75%)
B. No, you should pay again in order to have the music in a new format. (25%)

6. You bought the CD a year ago, but now itís lost or ruined. Is it OK to download the album or burn a copy from a friend's CD without paying for it?

A. Yes, you paid for the music once and that's enough (74%)
B. No, it's still stealing. (26%)

7. You love the CD you bought by the hot new pop star. Is it OK to burn a copy of the CD for your friends?

A. Yes, for 20 or more friends (15%)
B. Yes, but only for 10 to 20 friends (0%)
C. Yes, but only for fewer than 10 friends (4%)
D. Yes, but only for fewer than five friends (22%)
E. Yes, but only for just one friend (13%)
F. No. Friends should buy their own copy of the music and support the artist (45%)

8. You love the CD you bought by the local struggling musician Is it OK to burn a copy of the CD for your friends?

A. Yes, for 20 or more friends (14%)
B. Yes, but only for 10 to 20 friends (1%)
C. Yes, but only for fewer than 10 friends (3%)
D. Yes, but only for fewer than five friends (14%)
E. Yes, but only for one friend (11%)
F. No. Friends should buy their own copy of the music and support the struggling artist (58%)

9. A friend tells you she loves the new CD she bought by the hot new pop star, and offers you a pirated copy. Is it OK to take it?

A. Yes, always (33%)
B. Yes, every so often, as long as you don't make a habit of it. (11%)
C. Yes, but only if it inspires you later to buy a different album by that same artist (4%)
D. Yes, but only on the condition that if you like it, you'll buy the album later (8%)
E. No. You should ask to borrow the original so you can try before buying (28%)
F. No. You should write down the title and artist name and buy the album yourself (16%)

10. A friend tells you she loves the new CD by the local struggling musician and offers you a pirated copy? Is it OK to take it?

A. Yes, always (24%)
B. Yes, every so often, as long as you don't make a habit of it. (8%)
C. Yes, but only if it inspires you later to buy a different album by that same artist (5%)
D. Yes, but only on the condition that if you like it, you'll buy the album later (11%)
E. No. You should ask to borrow the original so you can try before buying (33%)
F. No. You should write down the title and artist name and buy the album yourself (18%)

11. Is it OK to use your VCR to create videotape library of episodes of your favorite TV programs for your personal use, even though the studios sell such libraries?

A. Yes (93%)
B. No (7%)

12. Is it OK to use your VCR to create videotape library of episodes of your favorite TV programs and then lend or give those tapes to friends?

A. Yes, to 20 or more friends (40%)
B. Yes, but only to 10 - 20 friends (1%)
C. Yes, but as long as it's to fewer than 10 friends (5%)
D. Yes, but as long as it's to fewer than five friends (18%)
E. Yes, but as long as it's for just to one friend (13%)
F. No. (24%)

13. Does it make any difference, above, if the program was on free TV as opposed to on a subscription service, such as HBO, to which your friend does not subscribe?

A. No, the principle is the same and it's always OK (54%)
B. No, the principle is the same and it's sometimes OK, depending on the number of friends involved (15%)
C. Yes: HBO is OK, but people should make their own free-TV program anthologies (3%)
D. Yes: Free TV is OK, but no one should be allowed to freeload off HBO or the like. (8%)
E. No, it's never OK (19%)

14. You read a fabulous column in the newspaper. Is it OK to make photocopies and pass or mail them around to friends and neighbors?

A. Yes, for 20 or more copies (54%)
B. Yes, but only for 10 to 20 copies. (3%)
C. Yes, but only for fewer than 10 copies (6%)
D. Yes, but only for fewer than five copies (15%)
E. Yes, but only one copy (6%)
F. No. (17%)

15. You read a fabulous work of short fiction in a published anthology Is it OK to make several dozen photocopies and pass or mail them around?

A. Yes, for 20 or more copies (27%)
B. Yes, but only for 10 to 20 copies. (2%)
C. Yes, but only for fewer than 10 copies (5%)
D. Yes, but only for fewer than five copies (11%)
E. Yes, but only one copy (6%)
F. No. (49%)

16. Does it make any difference, in the above question, if the work of fiction is novel-length?

A. No, it's still OK (34%)
B. Yes, copying a novel is wrong, but copying a short story is OK (16%)
C. No, it's still wrong (50%)

17. Does it make any difference, when it comes to copying material that's still under copyright, whether it's out of print or otherwise difficult if not impossible to purchase?

A. No, it's OK no matter what (29%)
B. Yes. If you can't buy it, it's OK to copy it. (45%)
C. No, it's still wrong (27%)

18. You read a compelling article on a magazineís website. Is it OK to copy the text electronically and paste it into e-mail to friends?

A. Yes, to 20 or more friends (49%)
B. Yes, but only to 10 - 20 friends (2%)
C. Yes, but only to fewer than 10 friends (4%)
D. Yes, but only to fewer than five friends (9%)
E. Yes, but only to one friend (4%)
F. No. Websites depend on visitors for revenue. Send your friends the address of the site. (32%)

19. You read a compelling article on a magazineís website. Is it OK to cut and paste the text electronically and post it to an online message board?

A. Yes (28%)
B. No. You can summarize and post brief excerpts, but you should post the web address, not the article (72%)

20. In the above examples, does it make a difference if the website is free to all or available only to paid subscribers?

A. No. Information wants to be free. Send it around. Post it at will. (31%)
B. Yes. If the site is free, send the URL. If it's paid-access, send the text. (20%)
C. Yes. If the site is paid-access, don't try to send the article around. (21%)
D. No, it's always wrong. (28%)

21. Is it OK for the owner of a business to play a music radio station over the intercom to provide background entertainment for employees and customers?

A. Yes, always (71%)
B. Yes, but only if it's a small business. (10%)
C. No, not without paying royalties to the musicians' unions. (19%)

22. You rent a movie from the video palace. Is it OK to show it at a meeting of your club?

A. Yes, always (63%)
B. Yes, but only if the club has 25 or fewer members. (5%)
C. Yes, but only if the club has 10 or fewer members (6%)
D. No. The video is rented for home viewing only, not for showing at a club, no matter how small. (26%)

23. You rent a movie from the video palace and must return it before you can watch it. Is it OK to dub a copy to watch later at your convenience?

A. Yes, you paid for it. (35%)
B. Yes, but only if you erase the copy of the movie after you view it. (17%)
C. No. (48%)

24. You check out a movie from the library and must return it before you can watch it. Is it OK to dub a copy to watch at your convenience?

A. Yes, always (38%)
B. Yes, but only if you erase the copy of the movie after you view it. (16%)
C. No. (46%)

25. A friend offers you a copy of a bootleg recording made at a concert with the permission of the band. Is it OK to take it?

A. Yes. The recording isn't for sale anyway, and it will improve your relationship with the artist. (45%)
B. Yes if he wants to give it to you. No if he wants to sell it to you. (39%)
C. No. Such recordings deprive artists of a market for their own, sanctioned live recordings. (16%)

26. Has the recent publicity about music piracy, file-sharing and so on changed your views about what is and isn't "fair use" of copyrighted material?

A. No, I remain aggressively opposed to attempts to limit my ability to acquire and disseminate material at will. (32%)
B. Yes. Although I'll continue to dabble in everyday copyright violations, I will be thinking twice as I do. (23%)
C. Yes, I'm cutting way back and being much more careful because, hey, it's only right. (11%)
D. Yes, I'm cutting way back and being much more careful because, hey, I might get sued. (9%)
E. Yes, I'm going to be as scrupulous as possible from now on. (14%)
F. Yes, I'm going to be as scrupulous as possible from now on and I plan to destroy all illicit copies in my possession.. (4%)
G. No, I followed the copyright laws before and I'm following them now (6%)

27. How do your feelings about the business / industry behind the artist influence your decision about whether or not to pay for the use of copyrighted material?

A. Not at all. I use what I want and try never to pay. (11%)
B. If an industry has been ripping off the consumer and the artist for years, I'm more likely to try not to pay. (50%)
C. Not at all. Stealing is stealing. Two wrongs don't make a right. (39%)

28. When it comes to everyday copyright dilemmas such as these, how do your beliefs ñ the dictates of your Better Self ñ square with your actual behavior?

A. They are in sync. I take what I can and I believe it's OK (19%)
B. They are not in sync. I believe I should be violating copyright more often than I do (11%)
C. They are not in sync. I violate copyright more than I should. My Better Self reproves me. (38%)
D. They are in sync. I respect copyright and make every effort never to violate it. (32%)

Lieberman peaks 14 months too soon

In NY Post doings ...

The latest Marist College poll in New York state shows that Sen. Joseph Lieberman is 10 points ahead of his nearest rival, Howard Dean. Which shows how tuned out New Yorkers are to the national election this early.

I'll wager that by the time the New York primary rolls around, Liberman will not only lose, he won't even be in the race. Any takers?

Meantime, a Post editorial today blasts the New York Times for blasting the Times for underplaying coverage of this week's Gallup poll showing most Iraqis think they're better off now than under Saddam. (The editorial isn't online yet.) Sorry, guys, you're missing the point. No one suggests that the Iraqis aren't better off today. But are we?

Google News creator reflects on success

Staci Kramer's latest in OJR: Google News Creator Watches Portal Quiet Critics With 'Best News' Webby. A year after its launch, the computer-generated aggregator is still taking flak for how it defines news. But Krishna Bharat has had the satisfaction of seeing growing acceptance of his news site. In a Q&A with OJR, he explains how things work behind the screens, and why he calls the site "a force for democracy."

Toward a weblogging empire

Wired News follows the story of Jason Calacanis, who is resurfacing as the would-be czar of a weblogging clearinghouse.

I hope Jason succeeds. As even he admits, it's an uphill climb. Nick Denton, creator of Gawker and Gizmodo, offers a reality check:

Denton ... fired back on his own site, "Jason Calacanis, founder of Silicon Alley Reporter and boom time hype-merchant, has re-emerged as a blog booster. God help us.... Calacanis is a smart and engaging guy, and I'm a believer in Web media, but the last thing the world needs now is his brand of late '90s enthusiasm. Here's a reality check: Gawker and Gizmodo do about $2,000 each in ad revenue a month. Roughly the earnings of a starving freelance writer."

Meantime, Tony Perkins of Red Herring and AlwaysOn fame pens a column today that might be better titled The Blogging Education of Tony Perkins. I've given in and added AlwaysOn to the blogroll at the right.

A wireless iPod can torpedo the pirates

Business Week Online: A Wireless iPod Can Torpedo the Pirates. If Apple produced the technology and Big Music revamped its business plan, today's file-swappers would be sunk in no time. (I'm linking to the printer page because the story page isn't rendering properly.)

For more vigilant coverage of the '04 election

From MediaChannel.org: Blogger Danny Schechter, author of the book Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the media failed to cover the war on Iraq, has a take on news media coverage of the 2004 election. Excerpt:

Variety reports that "Everyone on the Bus" will be the motto of ABC News during the coming presidential election as network executives recently introduced their plans for covering the campaign. The network introduced several new wrinkles in its 2004 coverage at a news conference: three high-tech-laden buses, described by executives as "mobile bureaus and mobile studios" that are designed to give reporters more flexibility in filing stories on the road; partnerships with two media outlets that reach school-age children; and expanded Internet coverage.

The problem is that once again more attention is being paid to technology and cosmetics than to content and analysis. ...

We need more than news buses on the campaign trail. We need a more vigilant media and media companies willing to allocate time and intellectual capital to improving coverage.

Dead on.

Dean camp looking for code jockeys

The Howard Dean campaign is looking for a few good Linux jockeys to work on their websites, says Doc Searls.

Studios try to thwart movie piracy

From today's NY Times: Studios Moving to Block Piracy of Films Online.

Lots of discussion about educating students, but precious little discussion of new digital delivery systems for the motion picture industry.

And John Schwartz follows up on the 66-year-old sculptor and and retired schoolteacher whom the RIAA originally accused of being a music pirate. She Says She's No Music Pirate. No Snoop Fan, Either.

WhoWillBeatBush.com

From Mitch Ratcliffe:

Seth Godin has launched WhoWillBeatBush.com, a way of wagering on the election that lets the person who correctly picks the winning Democratic candidate and the margin of victory (presumably in popular votes -- do they mean electoral votes, which have counted more in previous Bush elections?) Each entrant earns one cent toward a pot that will be awarded to the charity of the winner's choice. I like this idea, because it gives you just one more reason to go and vote -- sometimes just being able to hope you'll win the opportunity to give a large amount of money to a charity is enough for the liberal voter to get off his or her rump and go to the poll.

Jason Calacanis launches Weblogs, Inc.

From BoingBoing:

Jason Calacanis, founder of Silicon Alley Reporter and Venture Reporter magazines, launched his new venture this morning. Weblogs, Inc. is sort of a profit-based micropublishing system for niche, business-to-business blogs. Here's a snip from the company's manifesto.

Weblogs, Inc. is a B2B Web site dedicated to creating niche Weblogs (a.k.a. blogs) across niche industries in which user participation is an essential component of the resulting product. Weblogs, Inc. is creating a new layer on top of the traditional business-to-business media that:

* saves professionals the time associated with reading dozens of B2B publications by providing a non-stop, top-level summary of the news;

* provides analytical tools that allow users the ability to sort and search stories by subtopics inside B2B niches;

* gives users the ability to participate by engaging in discussions, ranking stories and by submitting their own ìblogsî (i.e., pointers and summaries of stories on other sites); and

* promotes fairness and truth in reporting by acting as a public forum where industry professionals can participate.

This from the Weblogs, Inc. site:

Traditional journalism is, in a word, broken. We've spent the last decade working in publishing (online and offline) and we believe that traditional journalism is imploding.

Interesting, and something to watch, perchance to participate in.

Watching the California debate

Watched the California recall debate tonight, which took place five minutes from where I used to live for 17 years in Sacramento. We'll see how the mainstream media plays this tomorrow, but quick first impressions:

Arnold came off as blustery and a little bit scary. He bullied Arianna Huffington and Cruz Bustamante by talking over them, interrupting, insisting on getting the last word. He wasn't out of his depth, but he kept coming back to general platitudes without specific solutions. Oddball comment of the evening: "We should model ourselves after Texas," Arnold said, talking about the state's infrastructure.

Cruz came off as a bit too arrogant, talking down to Arianna and Arnold as if they didn't know the intricacies of state government. He pulled a Gore on a couple of occasions, visibly flustered at the nattering nabobs on the panel.

Tom McClintock seemed assured and didn't back down from his conservative positions even when he was a minority of one on some issues, such as in his criticism of illegal immigrants. I didn't see anything to suggest he's thinking of dropping out.

Arianna was a wildcat, attacking Cruz on occasion but mostly taking aim at Arnold. At one point, when he repeatedly interrupted her, she shot back, ìThis is the way you treat women ..."

Peter Camejo was impressive if a bit too professorial and impractical. He raised issues that nobody else touched, about civil liberties and reformng the tax system.

The moderator must have been on drugs, calling Arianna "Governor Schwarzenegger" at one point.

All in all, nobody made any fatal mistakes. The debate once again reinforced my deepfelt belief that the electoral system is out of whack at both the national and statewide level. I wish someone would finance a proposition that reformed the system of elections so that we could vote for the candidate we really support (Arianna) rather than being forced to vote for one of the front-runners because there's no runoff election. (The Green Party supports this.) Isn't representative government about voting for the candidate you favor the most?

The winning candidate tonight just may have been Gray Davis, with all these suits taking potshots at one another. The latest tracking polls indicate that he's closing the gap. I'm no fan of Davis, but don't be surprised if he narrowly beats the recall in 13 days.

Here's the Sac Bee's Daniel Weintraub's take: No clear winner.

National Free WiFi Day

Thursday is National Free WiFi Day. (Intel, which coaxed T-Mobile, Wayport, Boingo, iPass and others that normally charge $30 a month or more for access into making all their hotspots free for a day, is calling it One Unwired Day.) The San Jose Merc has the story.

The continuing death of radio as usual

Doc Searls today on the Continuing death of radio as usual.

Gannett's missing archives

Remember the U.S. Supreme Court's Tasini v. New York Times ruling, which required newspaper publishers to negotiate archiving rights with free-lancers or purge their databases of unlicensed freelance material? The ruling came down June 25, 2001.

I just learned today that a number of Gannett newspapers have had their archives down for more than two years now. The kicker is they are not being allowed to filter out the infringing material so that the archives could go live again, thanks to orders from Gannett corporate. So at the estimable AZCentral, for example, all stories disappear into the ether after two weeks.

This is what happens when lawyers run your company.

Drudge hijacked?

Wot the heck? I just typed in www.drudgereport.com and was transferred to Web Money Transfer. Was Drudge hijacked? Or is this a new revenue stream for him?

Will California's anti-spam law work?

Will California's new anti-spam law work? I doubt it (of the hundreds of spam messages I get today, none come with the required "ADV" in the Subject line), but perhaps a small step is better than none.

Debate times two

Californians can tune in to local channels today at 6 pm to watch the candidates in the recall election debate. I'll TiVo it just to see how Arnold comes off, since this will be his only debate appearance.

Thursday on MSNBC-TV at 6 pm (I believe it's live on the East Coast and tape-delayed here in the West) is the next Democratic candidates debate, with the new front-runner, Wesley Clark.

RSS entrepreneurs offer online publishing alternatives

Steve Outing's latest in E&P: Startups Offer Online Publishing Alternatives. It's a fascinating look at a half-dozen RSS entrepreneurs, most of whom I'd never heard of. Excerpt:

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada-based Toolbutton Inc. is run by Dale Janssen, who hails from the technical-education industry -- where he published several hundred e-mail newsletters and says his previous company sent out about 20 million opt-in e-mails a month. "About a year ago," he says, "I saw the inevitable decline of e-mail as a content-delivery method on the Internet. So I set out to find a replacement -- and as the story normally goes -- I did not find anything, so I built it."

Janssen liked what he saw with RSS, and he's especially enthusiastic about the RSS 2.0 specification, which adds some capabilities that support more sophisticated publishing. He points out that RSS 2.0 supports adding attachments to feeds. So, future RSS feeds could include audio or video clips and they can deliver actual content to subscribers, rather than simple text links to it, as is now the most common practice.

Geek eye for the Luddite guys

Fortune magazine (and gotta love this headline): Geek eye for the Luddite guys. Can three tech experts deliver digital happiness to a small part of America? Fortune footed the bill to install practical, easy to use products in the home of the most typically tech-less family we could find in an attempt to create digital nirvana.

Outrage of the Day

Reuters: A federal court in Oklahoma City has blocked the national "do not call" list that would have allowed consumers to stop most unwanted telephone sales, one week before the much-anticipated measure was due to take effect. Some 50 million people had already signed up (including me).

Search by location with Google

Gary Price and Sheila both point us to a new Google capability: Search by location. Says Sheila: "You're looking for nearby sashimi in a strange city, or you can't remember the name of the pizza joint a few blocks away. Here, you can restrict your search to a geographic area (a city or a zip code), and Google will deliver a map with your results marked on it."

Gary points out, "Google that gets all of the press for being so innovative. Unfortunately many people have forgotten that other tools are still vital, useful, and also doing innovative things."

'An edited blog is a contradiction in terms'

Tim Rutten of the LA Times jumps into the controversy over the Sacramento Bee putting the editing clamps on Daniel Weintraub's blog. (See the past two days for prior entries on the subject.) I disagree with most of Rutten's conclusions, but he ends the piece nicely with this:

"An edited blog is a contradiction in terms," said Orville Schell, dean of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. "It's a characteristic of the Internet in general that forms like the blog emerge with great exuberance and edgy promise and then the overseers move in. That's a pity. We need frontiers of plain-speaking, even it's politically incorrect. I understand why the Bee did what it did, but it leads to a restraint on free-thinking, which is lamentable."

I suspect Schell wouldn't have a problem with the kind of Editing Lite for blogs that I proposed in February.

Sheila Lennon, one of the best newspaper bloggers in the land, has more on this here and here.

Flashback to the birth of a father

My niece Gina, who just had her first baby, Elisabeth, emails to tell me she is receiving the weekly BabyCenter email newsletter (which I highly recommend to new parents). She added, "Hey, look at the bottom of the newsletter, it's got your series on Bobby."

And indeed it did. Bobby is 4 years old now and, for the moment, no longer a major media star.

Governor Groper?

Katha Pollit in The Nation offers this salient point about revelations concerning Arnold Schwarzenegger's past:

Now just imagine for a moment that a Democratic politician had told a soft-core men's magazine in 1977 about gangbanging a "black girl"--and when asked about it in 2003 said he didn't remember a thing about the interview or the incident itself, but also said he made the whole thing up to get attention. Would that story have been relegated to the bin of youthful escapades by Fox, CNN, the New York Post, Peggy Noonan, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and the rest? Or would we be hearing a lot about "character" and the "I was lying" defense? ...

Absolutely. The point is not that Arnold's indiscretions should disqualify him -- they shouldn't -- but that there's a terrible double standard at work in the land.

Whoopsie! RIAA withdraws suit

Gosh, looks like the recording industry wasn't all that careful when it picked out some of its initial legal targets. Turns out, the Boston Globe reports, that one of its targets wasn't a file-trader at all. And now they've withdrawn their suit.

Mary has more at bIPlog.

Ombudsmen take an undeserved bashing

Matt Welch couldn't be more wrong in his latest in Reason Online: Anything but the Ombudsman! Why newspapers should avoid in-house watchdogs.

It's the paucity of ombudsman at U.S. newspapers (something like 40 out of 1,700 daily papers) that make contrarians like Welch take potshots at one of the few institutions that can help restore reader trust in newspapers. Ombudsmen do what no other editorial position can do: shine a light into the editorial process, expose slip-ups, and bring transparency to the labyrinthine newsrooms of America. Too bad Matt hasn't ever been exposed to one.

Should newspapers edit their blogs?

New in OJR: Should newspapers edit their blogs? Mark Glaser ponders the Sacramento Bee's decision to bring blogger Daniel Weintraub's California Insider into the fold.

Meantime, Mickey Kaus follows up on the muzzling of the Bee's political blogger with an update and this conclusion about "the Bee's best defense--in effect, 'We didn't let the Latino caucus muzzle Weintraub because we muzzled him first!' "

I'd concede that pre-publication editing often improves pieces--depends on the editor--but not enough to justify what is lost on the Web (where you can always do post-publication fiddling if necessary).

Again, I'm with Kaus on this one. And also with him that bloggers shouldn't take it out on the new Bee editorial crew blog. I know some of those folks (three out of six are past colleagues), and they're good people.

Meantime, Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit chimes in on l'affaire Bee, with an interview in OJR and his own posting. Sayeth Glenn:

what I like about a Movable Type-powered blog like this one is that you can produce a post like this, bit by bit, over an hour or so as new stuff happens. I don't think you could do that with an editor involved, and certainly not if you had to email in each incremental addition. Especially after the editor has left for the day.

Agree there. And Jeff Jarvis, natch, has his say. Says Jeff (and, again, I agree):

News organizations have to start looking at information in new ways. I started making this point the other day when I suggested that just for a moment, we should drop the term "news" with all its heavy baggage and instead look on our job in terms of imparting information. (That same day, I had a long lunch on this topic with Jay Rosen, chair of NYU's journalism school and a blogger himself; he gets it.) When you do that, when you see yourself as a leader in the information business, then minders and copy editors become just a little less important. The value of information to the audience becomes more important. ... even more than being in the news business, we are in the information business.

And, finally, Ryan Pitts has a lot more here.

A free blog traffic analyzer

From the Shifted Librarian comes word of a new service, Lumberjack, that analyzes your blog traffic -- for free. (Do you really want to know?)

Dirty secrets

Mother Jones: Dirty Secrets. No president has gone after the nation's environmental laws with the same fury as George W. Bush -- and none has been so adept at staying under the radar.

A new Dem blog, but where's the Bush countdown?

The Democratic National Committee has a new blog: Kicking Ass.

Here's an idea (and I'm surprised I haven't seen this on any site yet): A java countdown ticker to the days, hours and minutes remaining in George W. Bush's administration, which is due to end at noon on Jan. 20, 2005.

Update: Just came across this Bush Countdown Clock via the Drudge Retort.

Maher: 'File sharing is theft'

Just caught Bill Maher on TiVo from his HBO Real Time show last. I found it astounding to see Maher go off on a 10-minute rant against file trading (complete with a remote feed from Liz Phair, with no one taking a contrary POV). "It's very simple: The technology allows you to steal. ... Sampling is theft." He then held up a half-dozen shitty albums from the '60s that contained only a single good song. His point, I guess, is that today's kids should suffer just as he did.

Can progressives love Wesley Clark?

The brilliant Sydney H. Schanberg in The Village Voice: Gen. Clark's changing tune on Iraq. He wobbled and weaved as his candidacy neared.

And related story: Can Progressives Love a Military Man?

From the New Republic: Why isn't Joe Trippi sweating Clark?

Plus, from last week's Slate: The Agenda of Wesley Clark. What he'd do as president.

From Monday's Slate: Wesley Clark's Patriot Act. The general unveils his campaign message in South Carolina.

And this: President Hillary -- a conservative fantasy exposed.

Finally, Wednesday's NY Times has this: Dean Takes the Offensive in Comments on Clark.

I doubt we'll see Dr. Dean go after Clark too harshly. He'll need him on the ticket in 14 months.

Smiling George on $200 bill

Just came across this on the Smoking Gun: North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House.

What is long distance?

John Patrick, president of Attitude LLC and former vice president of Internet technology at IBM, ordered his Packet8 VoIP system last week and got it Friday. What is long distance, anyway? he asks.

Animated Arianna

Yesterday I reported on the Match Your Candidate Game, created by the web gang at Arianna Huffington HQ.

Now comes another fun and edgy Internet film short, the Special Interest Brothel, set in a cathouse for fat cats.

Meantime, I had missed this earlier animated short, Hybrid vs. Hummer.

It's amazing what creative minds can do when they're not inhibited by front-runner status.

Jury convicts man in DMCA case

CNET News.com:

A federal jury has convicted a Florida man of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in the first jury-trial conviction under the controversial law, according to a U.S. attorney's office.

The Los Angeles jury found 38-year-old Thomas Michael Whitehead guilty on Friday of selling hardware that could access DirecTV satellite broadcasts without paying for them, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy for people who pirate cable or satellite TV. On the other hand, surely this was illegal before the DMCA?

Romenesko, MIA

Why is Jim Romenesko -- by far the best thing about Poynter Online -- not even mentioned on the Poynter Online home page?

A new era at SFGate

Carl Sullivan of E&P interviews SFGate news director Vlae Kershner.

A blogger band

A blogger band: Ken Layne, Matt Welch and the Corvids.

Can newspapers handle blogs?

Doc Searls weighs in on the Sacramento Bee's bloggergate. Says Doc: "My belief is that [small media] will be the first to learn how to use blogs, and bloggers, as symbiotic sources of both news production and editing services."

Times crossword gets beefed up

Perhaps taking a page from the videogame industry's multiplayer games playbook, the NYTimes.com today announced three new features on its Premium Crosswords that enable members to play collaboratively or competitively, solo or in groups. The new features, ìPlay Against the Clock,î ìPlay With a Friendî and ìChallenge Matches,î are available to Premium Crosswords subscribers only, for an annual subscription fee of $34.95 or a monthly fee of $5.95.

If you're a crossword puzzle nut, that's good news.

Americans now split on Iraq war

Gallup reports today: Americans Grow More Doubtful About Iraq War. According to a key Gallup indicator of Americans' support for the Iraq war, public agreement that the Iraq situation was "worth going to war over" has declined 8 points in less than two weeks, and declined 13 points since late August. As a result, Americans are now evenly divided on this question.

This comes on the heels of yesterday's Gallup finding that showed Gen. Wesley Clark leading President Bush 49-46 percent in a head-to-head matchup, with Howard Dean trailing Bush slightly. (The Gallup site offers only a video version of their findings.) This, despite the fact that most people still can't name a Democratic candidate.

Meantime, Josh Marshall reports that the White House-engineered mudslinging campaign against Clark (led by -- surprise! -- Fox News) has begun in earnest.

And, living down to expectations, Newsweek's Howard Fineman pens a campaign trail update with this headline: Howard who? When he announced his candidacy, Wesley Clark became the Democrats' new It Boy.

Dick Morris, the execrable Clinton castoff and back-stabber, has a column in the NY Post today suggesting the Clark will fade down the stretch: "The Dean candidacy is the first creation of the Internet age. By contrast, Clarkís is perhaps the last of the media-created candidacies."

By the way, last night my site and blog went down for the fourth time this year. Dreamhost (Nightmarehost?) came back with the message: Site unavailable. error id: "bad_httpd_conf" -- whatever that means. If it happens again, I'm switching hosts.

FBI seeking reporters' notes

Wired News: The FBI says it will soon demand reporters' notes in its attempts to nail the so-called Homeless Hacker, Adrian Lamo.

A bad idea. As the article points out, "According to the Justice Department's policy standards, subpoenas for reporters' notes can be issued only if 'the information sought is essential to a successful investigation -- particularly with reference to directly establishing guilt or innocence' and after the government has 'unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the information from alternative non-media sources.' "

File traders get kick out of soccer flick

Wired News:

Among the top 10 movies downloaded on the Internet in August were the usual blockbusters: Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hulk, Matrix Reloaded ... and Shaolin Soccer.

A comedy about a group of Shaolin monks who blend their kung fu skills with soccer is a smash hit with file sharers (watch the trailer). ...

Fans of the Kung Fu genre have been waiting for Shaolin Soccer for months. Miramax has postponed its release date at least three times. Originally released in Cantonese with English subtitles, the film was dubbed into English for U.S. audiences. Now, the studio intends to release the movie in the original form with English subtitles instead.

A Miramax spokesman said that the company is looking for the right time to release the film to give it the best chance of success in the market. There's no set release date at the moment.

Army admits using JetBlue data

Wired News: Millions of JetBlue passenger records were used in a military effort whose methods closely resemble those employed in the notorious Terrorism Information Awareness ¸berdatabase program, the Army confirmed Monday.

A telephone revolution at Dartmouth

Yesterday I mentioned that I signed up for Packet8, a Voice Over IP service. Today the NY Times has a look at an innovative experiment on the Dartmouth campus. The college is venturing into the world of VoIP, which essentially turns a computer into a telephone. (I'm adding two more urls to the same story to compare how long it lasts in the free news universe, so here's the Dartmouth VoIP story in the Userland RSS workaround, and the same story through the Google Advanced News Search.)

Recall is back on

A few minutes ago an 11-judge federal appeals court ruled unanimously that the Oct. 7 California recall election should proceed. (The Supreme Court, I suspect, won't take up the case.)

Now, why couldn't Florida have produced a quick, fair and legally sound result?

Blogging the WTO summit

In the Guardian UK, Victor Keegan reports on the Guardian's experimental linking of editorial comment and the world of the blog during this month's WTO summit.

Thanks to Gary Price for the pointer.

Jon Stewart and the Emmys

The only good thing about last night's Emmy Awards show: Jon Stewart, who snagged two Emmys for his outstanding Daily Show.

Catch a clip of him on Lisa Rein's Radar.

An age of intimacy for media

FCC chairman Michael Powell in the NY Times Magazine: "We're moving to a world of incredible intimacy in mass media," he says. Thanks to TiVo, "I'm my own programmer, not NBC."

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

Transitioning to TypePad

OK, I've tracked down the source of my problems with MovableType. There may be a small warning in here for other MT users.

Over the weekend I received an email from my ISP, Dreamhost, warning me that I had exceeded my storage limit. This explained why my blog started behaving strangely last week (the right nav often disappeared, and then reappeared, ghostlike). And it explained why I could no longer receive email from my ISP yesterday afternoon.

I was taken aback by Dreamhost's claim that I was a storage glutton, because I have a relatively modest website (OK, 1,800-plus pages and many photos) and have only seven months' worth of blog entries (almost entirely text) on the Dreamhost servers. So I figured my 200 megabytes of storage should suffice.

As it turned out, one MovableType folder -- the archives folder -- contained 333 megabytes of data all by itself. This, despite the fact that when I exported all my 1,600 entries, it amounted to only 3 megabytes. So what's the deal? Anil Dash told me that MovableType's archive doesn't throw away anything. So every time you rebuild the site (and I index my entries by daily, monthly and individual entry), it adds to the data storage.

I just emptied the 333-meg archive folder and rebuilt, and it seems to have gone smoothly.

Saturday I signed up with TypePad, another blogging service from Ben and Mena Trott, and I like what I've seen so far. (My friend Ernie the Attorney turned me on to it originally.) It has additional funcitonality, some cool photo blog tools, and other streamlined features. It also lets readers copy and paste from my main page (something that MT has balked at). So I may hop over there. On the downside, I would have to change my blog's url for the second time this year. (I should have originally chosen blog.jdlasica.com, it seems, and not jdlasica.com/blog).

To import all my MT entries on this blog over to TypePad, I've had to change the comments function to keep them hidden instead of displaying the reader comments in the main blog area. Once I export my MT blog, I'll switch it back, both on this site and the TypePad site. Stay tuned.

Later: A reader notes that the inability to cut and paste is a template/CSS issue, not a MovableType issue. Perhaps, but it happens on a lot of MT blogs, I'm told, and no one has come forward with a fix. If you have one, I'd be glad to hear it, and if it works, I'll be happy to spread the news of your prowess. (I only recently discovered that virtually all stylesheets are publicly accessible.)

A blogger goes under the knife

Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing for Guardian Newspapers and the man who started the whole Hitler flap that the New York Times and Wired News picked up on, has a terrific blog. Today he reports that he had Lasik surgery on his eyes this morning.

I also had Lasik surgery done in February 2000, and my world changed markedly for the better. Went from 20-600 vision to 20-20 and 20-25. Went from severe astigmatism to none. Went from being entirely dependent on eyeglasses to wearing them for reading on occasion. It's not for everyone, but if you're a good candidate, take the plunge.

Later: Simon, do give us updates on how you're coming along. Everyone heals at different rates. The strangest part for me was wearing a blindfold for a full day after the procedure. But when I took it off -- what a sight to behold! I could see images clearly that were hundreds of feet away. It took between two and three months for my vision to stabilize (meantime, I had to resort to $5 drugstore glasses to focus on my computer screen). But things gradually calmed down, and I even went back for a followup zap.

Glocal journalism

"Glocal Journalismî in the United States: an interview with Doug McGill and Raman Narayanan on Wisconsin Public Radio (an audio version is also available). I've never liked the term glocal journalism -- why make up terms when you don't have to? -- but the moderator explains it here:

A growing movement in American journalism is trying to do just that, to illuminate the connections between our local community and the international world. Itís called glocalizing the news and its being practiced by dozens or more small- and mid-sized newspapers.

Dealtime Relaunches as Shopping.com

Chris Sherman in Searchenginewatch.com: Dealtime Relaunches as Shopping.com. I also hadn't heard that Dealtime acquired the consumer product review site Epinions in May 2003.

Blogging vs. journalism: Another casualty

Dan Gillmor reports that Chinese blogger Chi-Chu Tschang says he was fired by the Bloomberg news agency because of his blog. I don't see anything remotely objectionable in his weblog, so we'll have to wait for more details.

'Free the Bee blogger!'

Kevin R. in LA Observed asks: Has Sacramento Bee political blogger Daniel Weintraub been reined in? The Bee's ombudsman reported yesterday that Weintraub's blog will now be subjected to the editing filter, after complaints from the Legislature's Latino Caucus.

I worked at the Bee for 11 years (I left in '97, before Weintraub got there) and I'm in agreement with Kevin's bottom line:

He's their opinion columnist, and his blog -- by design -- is more analysis and personality than it is factual reporting. Some readers may accept his insights as truth, but many don't. It's informative anyway. The point of a blog is personal insights, and as Kaus points out, if the Bee wants to broaden the spectrum of takes, it can add more bloggers. ...

I'm pro editor and have yet to meet the journalist, myself included, who wouldn't benefit from a good collaborative editor. Even so, I think the Bee erred. Spontaneity may be overrated in some bloggers hands -- I prefer thought-out posts -- but quickness to break or react to news is part of why Weintraub and the Bee have drawn so much positive attention.

I also tend to side with Mickey Kaus on this:

Even if the Bee's move is just for show--to placate the Latino caucus with a procedural reform--and even if the editors involved have privately assured Weintraub they won't change a thing, it will have an inevitable degrading effect on Weintraub's blog. The whole point of blogging is that you get someone's take right now, when it can make a difference. What if Weintraub has a good idea at 7:30 P.M. and the editors have gone home? By the time they come back in the next day to "review" his idea, history may have moved on--the idea will be stale, even if it might have actually made a difference if it had been posted in time. ... But I actually doubt the editorial approval process will be completely benign. Read the ombudsman's pompous report ("no newspaper should publish an analysis without an editor's review") and you can see an edge-dulling, anti-controversialist mindset at work that is inimical to sound and well-established blogging practices. ... As long as nobody's libeled, why not publish analyses without an editor's review? ... If Weintraub's too much of an anti-liberal blogger, add a liberal blogger! Don't supress them both under a smothering blanket of bureaucratic timidity!

Over at Condor Blog, David Jensen had a lot on this yesterday. Instapundit, Hewitt (who had it first), Simon and Matt Welch are among those who have also weighed in.

As for me, I blogged about the overall topic last winter: Should newspaper bloggers be subjected to the editing filter? Short answer: After-the-fact copy editing and reviewing content for libel is fine, but this kind of pre-publication editing review tamps down the very thing that makes blogging special.

More on email interviews

Regarding last week's blogosphere discussion about posting emails and scooping email interviewers (Are emails private?), Matt Welch and Sheila Lennon add their two cents on Jeff Jarvis's blog. But a more enlightening posting, in my view, comes from Kevin Roderick over at LA Observed. Writes Kevin in part:

It's discouraging because email interviews are a great tool that should be encouraged. They are fast, accurate, often convenient for both parties, no transcription needed, no long distance charges. They foster more accurate and improved journalism, and afterward both interviewer and subject have a permanent record they can use for whatever. But there are many legit reasons a journalist might not want the world to know what he's working on weeks or months before a story (or book or "60 Minutes" segment) is completed.

Lazy competitors is number one. Or you might need to conduct initial research under the radar to see if there even is a story, or to get the story, especially an investigative story. A project can also involve considerable expense and time, and put a writer's reputation at stake, so why should it get out half-assed and incomplete? It's akin to publishing a partially written, unedited story, only worse since the questions that a given subject sees may reflect only a small piece of the larger puzzle. The story itself could shift dramatically based on what you learn. Not all stories cycle in hours like on the Web, nor should they. Journalists who take time to research are a good thing, not something to be disparaged.

So writers beware -- know the trustworthiness of your subject before you reveal too much to them in email. I try to be open and forthcoming in email introductions, figuring it's only right since I'll be asking them to reveal themselves. I'll be more guarded and cagier in email now, especially with bloggers -- who seem to be the main,if not the only, adherents to this cause. I'll get a commitment of confidentiality, and if in doubt I'll try to use the phone or go in person, or if it's sensitive I'll try to interview somebody more honorable. So in a way everybody loses.

For the record, my general principle is "you talk to me, not my blog."

Hear, hear. If I want to talk to your blog, I'll say so.

Matt responds at LA Observed as well. And the comments attached to the posting are pretty interesting. I'm with David P.:

If someone interviews me about a subject that I have not written about and I scoop that person by writing about it before their piece comes out, I am an asshole. Period. It has nothing to do with blogging vs. old media or Alexis ratings (a statistical joke, btw) or ownership of an interview. It has to do with, as Cathy wrote, common courtesy.

Millions of workers to lose overtime

Today's Daily Mis-Lead:

President Bush's Department of Labor announced in March a dramatic overhaul to the nation's overtime laws that will cause millions of workers to lose access to overtime pay. The administration claims that 644,000 workers will lose overtime eligibility, but it's really at least 2.5 million and possibly up to 8 million workers who will lose their overtime. ...

The Match Your Candidate game

Not sure which California recall candidate is your favorite? Can't figure out what Arnold really stands for? Wish you could tell Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamante apart? Arianna Huffington's web crew has come up with an animated interactive Match Your Candidate game.

Says the Arianna camp: "If you're tired of the media's obsession with personalities, scandals, glamour and glitz and want to know what the candidates actually believe, here's your chance. Find out where the candidates stand on the issues."

Sure, it's politically skewed, but the game (in the tradition of The Dating Game) is also pretty amusing.

Taking the VoIP plunge with Packet8

I'll be busy making phone calls over the next three weeks for a report on online newspaper registration practices I'm writing for the Newspaper Association of America.

So, a minute ago I took the plunge and ordered a Voice Over IP service. I followed the advice of my friends Buzz and Dan (who wrote about it here) and ordered a $19.95/month monthly service from 8x8's Packet8. Since I've got a cable modem, it allows me to call anyone in the United States or Canada for essentially free, even if they don't have Packet8.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Playground hell ahead for Heaven?

Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander missed the first quarter of yesterday's game to be by his wife's side as she gave birth to their first child. Shaun and Valerie named their daughter Heaven. Sorry, kid, but your parents are asking for trouble.

Please stay tuned

We're continuing to experience technical difficulties on this blog. (The right-hand nav has disappeared again tonight.) I may be moving from MovableType to TypePad by mid-week, so please stay tuned, I'll keep you apprised.

Clintons anoint Gen. Clark

Interesting William Safire column in Monday's Times, speculating on the reasons for the Clintons to back Gen. Wesley Clark's candidacy against Howard Dean. He's certainly right about the "fickle media":

As expected, fickle media that had been entranced with Dean (Dr. Lose-the-War) dropped the cranky Vermonter like a cold couch potato and are lionizing Clinton's fellow Arkansan and fellow Rhodes Scholar. ...

We'll see if the Democratic rank and file follow in lockstep with the punditocracy. Could be, but I doubt it.

Will genetic crops rescue Mother Earth?

I'm not a big fan of those (mostly on the left) who want to ban all genetically modified foods, as this previous post (Biotech is not the enemy) attests.

Now comes this item in today's NY Times:

Frankenfoods to the Rescue Of Mother Earth

Here's something for the Greens of the world to ponder: "genetic engineering may be the most environmentally beneficial technology to have emerged in decades, or possibly centuries," Jonathan Rauch writes in The Atlantic Monthly. So-called "transgenic crops" ó soybeans crossbred with genes that tolerate herbicides, for example ó have enabled farmers to vastly increase yields while eliminating the need for ploughing, which leaches the soil of nutrients and promotes erosion and runoff. Ploughless farming, because it requires no fuel, also saves money and reduces pollution.

While citing the substantial risks involved in creating transgenic plants, the article notes other benefits of bioengineered crops: transgenic cotton, for instance, which makes its own pesticide courtesy of a toxin-producing gene, and engineered rootworm-resistant corn have enormous potential to reduce pesticide use. And other crops are being developed to tolerate soil contaminants like aluminum, a big problem in the tropics.

Noting that "world food output will need to at least double and possibly triple over the next several decades," the author argues that "the great challenge" is "not to feed an additional three billion people (and their pets) but to do so without converting much of the world's prime habitat into second- or third-rate farmland."

As a result, "if properly developed, disseminated and used, genetically modified crops may be the best hope the planet has got."

Here's Rauch's full piece in the October Atlantic Monthly: Will Frankenfood Save the Planet? Over the next half century genetic engineering could feed humanity and solve a raft of environmental illsóif only environmentalists would let it.

By the way, with all this talk about Frankenfood, think Al Franken has a legal claim here?

Hitler at home and other Internet adventures

The Sunday New York Times carried an interesting article about the power of the Internet as a distribution medium, even against the powers of copyright interests. Case in point: A 1938 article in Homes & Gardens, a British magazine, that featured Hitler's mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps. It showed up on the Net, despite protests from the magazine.

Excerpt:

The episode is an object lesson in the topsy-turvy world of copyright and "fair use" ó an area made far murkier by the distributive power of the Internet and the subsequent crisscrossing of international legal codes. In the United States, the posting would most likely be considered fair use, said Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "Reprinting the article now, 65 years after its original publication, strikes me as more like reporting or commenting on a news story, or fair use, than photocopying a current scientific article to save the cost of buying more magazines," she said.

Also from the Times: Students Shall Not Download. Yeah, Sure.

And this, appearing Monday in the Times, which has suddenly discovered IP issues: Music's Struggle With Technology. The current fight over file-trading technology resembles a grand battle in the 1990's over encryption technology.

Think Debate on Music Property Rights Began With Napster? Hardly. The music industry has grappled with the uncertainties wrought by new technologies for over a century.

Turn On. Tune In. Download.

Slate's Rob Walker in the Sunday NY Times Magazine: Turn On. Tune In. Download.

Cronkite likens Ashcroft to Torquemada

Walter Cronkite op-ed piece: U.S. battles terror with a touch of the Spanish Inquisition.

In his 2 1/2 years in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law.

Tomas de Torquemada, you might recall, was the 15th-century Dominican friar who became the grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. He was largely responsible for its methods, including torture and the burning of heretics -- Muslims in particular.