Rambling Reading

Didn't post for a week because I was on a business trip and my WiFi connection was spotty at best. In any case, here's what I've been reading

-A conservative gone limp.

-Sports Guy loves YouTube.

-The New York Times has a drug problem.

-The New York Times should be criminally prosecuted. (Note: I love the NYT)

-Another pro for drinking coffee.

-Warren Buffet is giving his money away (to charity).

-You can't ask Ask.com about everything.


That's it for now.

Republish Thursday II: Memo to the RIAA: Don't Screw This One Up Too

From John Battelle:

According to this report, which is light on confirming details, the RIAA is considering action against the YouTubes of the world, because there are so many videos of kids hamming it up to songs where rights have not been cleared. Like this one, for example, on Google Video.
Good f'ing lord, RIAA. Wake up. This is how we use music in the real world. Get over yourselves.

Well said, John. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Republish Thursday: Don't Fuck withy MySpace Tom - Literally

Today from ValleyWag:

If earlier reports are true, that Tom Anderson sure
loves the ladies. But the co-founder and public face of MySpace doesn't always impress, according to an acquaintance.
One of Tom's lovely ladies, says the tipster, left a between-the-sheets romp
unsatisfied. And she was anything but quiet about it. And Tom wouldn't take that
lying down. He cock-blocked her the hard way -- every time she built a MySpace
profile, Mr. Humps-a-lot kicked her off the site. Deleted her whole profile.
"You'll never sleep in this town again!"
It might be a harsh punishment, but
hey, the guy has a reputation to keep. It's not so bad -- who hasn't locked an
ex-lover out of the house?

Hmm..Seems like a great guy.

Another Day, Another Thinking Liberal Fired in Utah

Jeffrey Neilsen, a non-tenured professor at BYU was recently told that his contract would not be renewed (read: fired) because he recently wrote an op-ed piece in the Salt Lake Tribune that spoke out against the LDS Church's position on Gay Marriage.

For those of you that live outside this bubble called Salt Lake, let me bring you up to speed: a few weeks ago, the LDS Church demanded that all Bishops (think: pastors, priests) read the following statement during Sunday services:

We are informed that the United States Senate will on June 6, 2006, vote on an amendment to the Federal constitution designed to protect the traditional institution of marriage.
We, as the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, have repeatedly set forth our position that the marriage of a man and a woman is the only acceptable marriage relationship.
In 1995 we issued a Proclamation to the World on this matter, and have repeatedly reaffirmed that position.
In that proclamation we said: "We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society."
We urge our members to express themselves on this urgent matter to their elected representatives in the Senate.

Because BYU is a privately owned institution of the LDS Church, it is generally expected of its faculty and staff that they will not have any opinions that differ from the 'Official' position of the LDS Church, and if they do have a different opinion, they are expected to hold those opinions silent. Unfortunately, for this professor, he will no longer be teaching philosophy at the tremendous institution that is called by some "The Harvard of the East"

Folks (specifically, morons in Utah), people in life will occassionally not agree with the LDS Church 100% of the time. When they do, that does NOT give you the right to dissassociate with them, nor does that give you the right to end their employment.

I empathize with Mr. Neilsen; however, I'm sure he realizes that better days are ahead of him. Perhaps a real school that allows the free flow of ideas and idealogical thought to flow freely will offer him a tenured position.

eBay Getting Wiki wit' It

eBay announced they will start promoting more UGC (User Generated Content) by announcing the use of a Wiki.

This is a great idea, and actually one that I discussed a couple months ago with former eBay executive.

The purpose of the Wiki will allow buyers and sellers to describe more about what their purpose is on eBay (which I have no doubt that it will replace the lame 'About Me' pages) and will allow eBay to seamlessly generate more content that will get picked up by Google and Yahoo more easily.

Click here to check out the article in Forbes.

Bye Bye to Net Neutrality

The House of Representatives yesterday passed up the opportunity to keep the Web neutral, essentially giving cable and phone companies the green light to charge users of their broadband services more depending on how many users are coming to their website.

This is kind of a big deal as phone companies will now be able to give certain favored (read "high-paying customers") versus those who don't pay quite as much (and thus causing them 'access problems').

Google, eBay, Amazon, IAC, etc all teamed up and lobbied Congressmen in the Nation's Capitol to try and get them to keep the Web neutral. Unforutnately, it didn't work. The phone/cable companies (i.e. AT&T, Comcast, PacBell, etc) essentially now control who sees what on the Web and at what price.

Our trip down the slippery slope continues.

Stock Market Doldrums

Anybody notice the hhhoorrriiibbbllleee market performance lately? Just in case you've been living in cave for the last month and a half our so, the Market is down approximately 800 points.

Lots of reasons one could assume as towhy the market is down, for example:

-Iran's on again, off again decision to suspend nuclear enrichment

-Interest Rate worries

-High Oil Prices (currently hovering on $70)

- Continuing uncertainty in Iraq.

Etc, etc, etc. It's pretty east to say that the market was overdue for a correction, following a torrid rise above the 11,000 mark to 11,600. However, there doesn't seem to be a particular sticking point as to what's causing the downturn.

The WSJ offered some helpful suggestions as to what to invest in while the market continues it's spiral downwards. They were traditional products - toothpaste, oil, food, utilities, clothing companies - the basic necessities that everyone still needs, even in market downturns. Of course most investors should already have these stocks if they're fully diversified.

Rambling Reading

Because today was such a slow news day (and because it's something that I'm going to start doing more often), I thought that I'd pass along a few news articles that I found interesting:

-The NBA Finals start on June 8, with two newbies to the Finals, the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat. Yahoo had a story with five reasons that you should care.

-A 15-year old qualified for the U.S. Open next week.

-Mitt Romney promises that polygamy won't be legalized, but universal health care might become mandatory, if/when he becomes president.

-Just in case you hadn't heard by now, today was 6/6/06 and a good day if you were in the marketing profession.

-A 22 year old New York kid robbed (read: scammed, punked) investors out of $7 Million.

Republish Thursday: Big Brother is Still Watching

Incredible story from USA Today:

Top law enforcement officials have asked leading Internet companies to keep histories of the activities of Web users for up to two years to assist in criminal investigations of child pornography and terrorism, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller outlined their request to executives from Google, Microsoft, AOL, Comcast, Verizon and others Friday in a private meeting at the Justice Department. The department has scheduled more discussions as early as Friday. Last week's meeting was first reported by CNET, an online news service.

Wow. I really can't say anything to that, except, happy web-browsing!