A music company lied? I know it's ahrd to believe, but apparantely the entire industry has been lying to consumers and to courts about their sales numbers. Turns out that despite all their protestation about piracy killing their profits, sales of individual CDs to customers have gone up. What has gone down? CDs shipped to stores, which means that stores are stocking less, but selling just as much. They must've spent several years overstocking, and got sick of it. Another factor is that sales of the top 100 CDs have gone down, which means that people are buying a more diverse catalog of music. My recollection from my years in the bookstore is that book publishers make less money per sale of a bestseller because they are usually discounted, and I would think that music works the same way. What does all that mean? Overall profits probably went up from 2003 to 2004, the period this study was done. All the numbers came from SoundScan.

As I read this article more thoroughly, I find more dishonesty. They are listing sales of individual CDs using the international market, where I suspect piracy causes more of a hit, and using domestic numbers for the shipments to stores, which makes the domestic market look bad. They are lying, and I hope the courts catch them. In the best of worlds, this would lead to politicians not passing DRM laws and similar such things, so that corporations will have to have good business models to make money, and not just legislate their profits while restricting our ability to use what we ahve paid for however we want.

This is just too funny. A group in Ireland made up a bunch of posters with the picture of a player from Israel's soccer team as part of a campaign to get people to boycott the Ireland/Israel soccer match. The group is the Irish-Palestinian Solidarity group. Just one problem- The player pictured is a Palestinian Arab who plays on the Israeli team is a very popular across Israel.

Just another example of how Israel is not at all the racist, apartheid state that people want to make it out to be.

There were a lot of letters in the AJC today about Israel, most of them full of inaccuracies or downright lies. I love how people call the wall an aprtheid wall. Since when is there anything wrong with a country strengthening it's boders, especially when those borders previously allowed people to come in and kill Jews indiscriminately, and since the wall went up, suicide bombing has plummetted. Some people just don't seem to think that Jews should be allowed to defend themselves.

Longtime fans of my blog (which means pretty much only me) may remember my discussion about the concept of a space elevator. Well NASA is adapting to the new century and has an idea which mgiht jumpstart the space elevator program. Based on the Ansari X Prize, NASA is sponsoring a contest to design a tether system, with the idea of using what is developed to build an elevator at some point in the future. At the very least, the $400,000 they are awarding should spark some good ideas. I really think that private enterprise is the way to go with space exploration. Not necessarily because private companies are better equipped to get there, but because they won't be held down by people complaining. People complain about everything. First they would complain about all the money that is going towards space exploration instead of being spent on bums, out of work single mothers, old people who didn't save for retirement, and everyone else whose bad choices make them eligible for public welfare. Then, after the government goes ahead and gets in space, they will complain that all the same people deserve the chance to go in to space, too. With private enterprise leading the way, they can give the complainers the middle finger and say, "If you want to go in to space, build a spaceship, just like we did."

There is a lot fo talk in the blogosphere about the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act and how the FEC is now saying that they may be required to extend that laws provisions to the internet. Needless to say, this scares a lot of people, seeing as such an extension would be a clear violation of freedom of speech, yet at the same time, the Supreme Court approved the law and is unlikely to strike it down, so if the FEC goes ahead with the internet thing, it could be really bad for bloggers and grass-roots internet politics. Amoing other things, I would not be able to link to a candidate's website.

Now it turns out that the supposedly huge number of people who were pushing for campaign finance reform int he first place was an illusion. The head of the Pew Reseacrh Center admitted such in an interview, saying that they created the illusion of mass numbers of people in favor of reform by paying millions to various media outlets like NPR to do stories on reform. Congress-people saw all this attention and figured people were really in favor, and so it passed. And how did it get through the Supreme Court? Well hearsay has it that Pew supplied them with a whole lot of "facts" and statistics that were simply not true. The SCOTUS can only make decisions based ont he information they have at hand, and since they were given incorrect information, they made a bad decision, one which is unlikely to be changed anytime soon.

To paraphrase one blogger's words (I forget who is was), we'll stop blogging when they pry the keyboards from our cold, dead fingers. Seriously, this is a very important issue, one that strikes at the heart of the Constitution. Since much of mainstream media, though not all, of course, are not big fans of blogging, they won't be on our side. Bloggers are primarily conservative-leaning, at least the more popular ones, and even John Kerry has gone on the attack, asking what can be done about people who keep bringing up dead issues and causing problems (John, Vietnam would have been a dead issue if you'd left it there, you opened yourself up to attack). All signs point to a coming crackdown, though whether it be soon, or years from now, who knows.

What I do know is that I won't be cowed, and neither will a lot of bloggers. If they want to arrest me and hundreds of others for linking to a campaign site, so be it. In this, our most fundamental right as citizens of a free country, I will take a stand. If they crack down, we will begin to see a huge number of civil disobediance cases, more than anytime since the 60's, and I will be right there with them. I hope it doesn't come to that, but I will stand up for my beliefs.

I've been reading more about SS. Private accounts seem like a no-brainer. Except for very brief periods, the stock market always far outperforms the SS rate of return, and even taking in to account those brief periods, like the couple of years after the .Com crash, the market earned 6% per year. SS gets a retiree 2% max, and that's only if you live decades in to retirement. If people are worried about making the right choices about which stocks to buy, all they ahve to do is invest in an index fund, like the S&P, and they'll make craploads more money than with straight SS. A study (there have been a lot of "studies," who knows which to trust) showed that in 95% of cases, a retiree today would have made more money with a PSA than with SS.

My trump card? Control over your own money, instead of a poltician not only getting to decide what to do with it, but having the legal right to decide one day that they don't feel like paying out any more SS benefits ever, or maybe just less, or maybe raising the age when you can get it, etc. With PSAs, the only person who can screw with your money is you. I just don't see a downside. It's not going to fix all SS problems, but at least it will give my generation a chance to see the money that's being stolen from us returned to us eventually. Plus, this is a lot of money to be put in to the stock market, which means a huge boost to the economy overall. And less money in the mythical SS trust fund for politicians to steal for their own desires, with only an IOU given in return. And that means less money for other entitlements, pork, etc.

Anyone got a downside? The only one I can think people might say is that then George Bush might win, and for the left that's bad.

I understand there's a lot of unrest in the 'Stans. And some people are saying they can't handle democracy because they were matriarchal/tribal before being taken over by Russia, then lived under Russian rule, then Soviet, and then under Russian bought "Presidents for Life," so they've never known democracy (at least that's my current understanding, without actually having verified it, but even if it's wrong, it doesn't change my point).

The Greeks never knew democracy before they invented it. The American colonies never knew democracy before they adopted it.

Saying someone can't handle democracy is like saying a battered wife should stay with her husband because she can't handle life on her own.

More polling fun! Gallop did a poll and asked if people supported private accounts instead of continuing SS as it is. 57% said. When they asked if they supported Bush's plan for SS, which is the exact same question, it fell to 37%. Media outlets like the NYT are, of course, mentioning the 37%, and ignoring the 57% part.

Now Jeb Bush is trying to seize Terri Schiavo and make her a ward of the state or somesuch thing so that they won't have to remove her feeding tube.

This brings up on more 100% definite fact. No one in their right mind, Terri Schiavo, me, whomever, would ever want to be a ward of the state in this situation.

Stay the fuck out of this mess, government!

Lots of minimum wage talk lately. Stealing an idea from columnist Walter Williams, if raising the minimum wage is the answer to poverty, then why don't we just convince all the poor countries in the world to have a minimum wage of $5/hour? The answer to that is that deep down higher minimum wage opponents know that all it does is slow growth and cause higher jobless rates.

Besides, most of the people earning minimum wage are teenagers. Few min. wage earners are heads of a family, and if you are the head of a family and earn only minimum wage, then maybe you should have thought about how you could possibly support a family on your income before you started a family. Even if I had a wife right now, I wouldn't want to have kids yet, because I don't feel like I have enough income/capital to do it right. I'll wait until I know I have enough money to support a family decently. And if I never get there, then I won't have kids. It's incredibly irresponsible, I'd even go so far as to say disgusting, to have children when you can't afford to feed and clothe them properly, or send them to daycare, or buy them books, whatever...

"Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday will propose establishing new rules for the use of military force, adopting a tough anti-terrorism treaty that would punish suicide bombers, and overhauling the United Nation’s discredited human rights commission, according to a confidential draft of a report on U.N. reform."

What the heck is he going to do? Go up to heaven and only let them have 71 virgins? Note to Kofi: Once a suicide bomber becomes a suicide bomber, there ain't a whole lot you can do to punish them. What the international community ought to be working on is helping Bush remake the middle east into a free democratic area where hate is no longer taught to children with their mother's milk. You can't punish a suicide bomber, but you can find ways to make it so that no one wants to become one, and allowing extremist Islamists and various despots to continue to rule countries over there is not going to help.

On a personal note, I've misread the catalog for my MBA program. I had been resigned to taking 5 years to finish, but it turns out it should only take 3 years or so, even less if I can handle an extra class once in a while, which I think I can.

Georgia Tech is out of the tourney, much to my dismay. It's disappointing that a team with 5 seniors that went to the national championship game last year just never quite seemed to get it going this year. On the other hand, Paul Hewitt has brought us the best years of Tech basketball since the early 90's. I'm really excited about next season. We'll probably have Jarret Jack, one of the best point guards in the country, back running the show, since I doubt he will go in the first round of the draft. We'll have four great sophomore players, and four highly touted freshmen coming in. Add in the return of Mario West, one of the hardest working players I've seen, and it could be an exciting year. Should have some ups and downs, but it will be fun!

I bought a pull-up bar for my apartment. It's pretty cool, $40, and fits on the door frame in such a way, that I feel complete confidence that my weight will be held up just fine. I've gone from doing 2 to being able to do 11 pullups, in just a couple of weeks. My back muscles are noticeably bigger and harder, so it's working! Now if I could just learn to enjoy push-ups as much. I'm really pushing this bodyweight exercise thing, but it's tough, a lot of it just feels so awkward. Bodyweight squats are really causing me problems. Put 200 lbs. on my shoulders, and I'm fine, but without all that I keep losing my balance.

Poker is going well. I'm not a winning player yet, but I'm not losing either, just kinda sticking around even.

The whole Terry Schiavo affair has done more than any other incident to prove what hypocrites our Congresspeople are, on both sides of the aisle. Conservatives, ostensibly all about state's rights, are using the power of the Federal Government to butt in to something that is not at all their business. Liberals, on the other hand, are typically big fans of government inetervention in any situation, because they all know everything good comes from the Federal Government, yet in this case they are chanting states' rights, and and telling Congress to butt out.

There is only one absolute fact about Terry Schiavo and her husband and her parents and this entire fiasco, and that is that the Federal government does not belong anywhere in this.

Heck, something like 19 judges have made ruling on this already. What is it about Congress that makes them think they are wiser than 19 judges?

So word is that Nancy Pelosi, worth $16 million, said last week that she would not move an inch to make any changes to SS until any sort of privatization is off the table. What is so bad? Does she really think Americans are so stupid that they will all lose their money if they are allowed to make any decisions on it? Now I'll grant you that there's a whole generation of Americans that probably wouldn't make good decisions because they were brought up to believe that the government would always take care of them. That's the attitude that Pelosi loves, because that means she'll be in power as long as she can keep the con going. As long as Americans are kept stupid and ignorant, then she can continue grabbing more and more power and control over our lives until it gets to the point where we have to vote for her, because we wouldn't be able to function without her taking care of us.

Ok, maybe that rant went a little far, but it was fun, anyway. But really, what is so horrible about allowing people more control over their money? It's not like it's all of SS, it's only a small percentage of SS. Pelosi participates in the congressional thrift plan, which has averaged a 6% return for 20 years, even going up during the .Com bust. If 6% is good enough for Nancy, why isn't it good enough for me? Why is the 1.7% return people get on SS so much better?

I just read that Planned Parenthood is completely against requiring minors to get parental consent before undergoing an abortion. I also just read that Planned Parenthood does require parental consent for minors to participate in a poster contest. Planned Parenthood obviously feels that posters are above and beyond the moral reasoning ability of minors, but abortions are right in line with, "Should we hang out at the mall today?" or "I can't decide between the berries and cream lipstick, or the plain red."

You can have an abortion at 13 without parental consent, you can die for your country at 18, but you can't have a drink until you are 21. We need to have a national discussion on this. The double standards are ridiculous, and certainly don't teach children any valuable lessons except perhaps, "hypocrisy is ok, so long as it fits a political agenda."

A very cool picture of one fo the giant pro-Democracy, anti-Syria protests in Lebanon.

Why didn't I think of something like this?

Direct from Best of the Web Today.


"A Harvard Crimson editorial denounces Dormaid, a student's entrepreneurial venture, which sells cleaning services to students living in on-campus housing:

'As appealing as the thought of a perpetually tidy room may be, (independent of family visits), Dormaid could potentially mess up as many rooms as it cleans. By creating yet another differential between the haves and have-nots on campus, Dormaid threatens our student unity.

'There are already plenty of services at Harvard that sharpen the differences between socioeconomic classes. Harvard Student Agency Cleaners, for example, lets some students pick up clean and neatly-folded clothes in crackling plastic bags. The less well-off among us, however, make semi-weekly journeys to the basement with bulging mesh laundry bags and quarters in hand. These differences extend to the social sphere as well--to final clubs composed predominately of wealthy young men, or to basic activities, like eating out, that some students cannot afford to enjoy. But while class differences are a fact of life--yes, there are both rich and poor people at Harvard--there is no reason to exacerbate these differences further with a room-cleaning service.'

Some people may want to do their own laundry. Or perhaps some people follow the advice of many rich people who have said things like, "A penny saved is a penny earned," and in many cases become rich because of it. So what this guy really means is that diversity is all well and good, but not if it means that everyone is not exactly equal.

Really. What is this holy diversity supposed to mean? Everyone must allow differences in looks and behavior, but not earning ability or ownership? The only way to achieve that is communism. That's what present day "diversity" would look like if it were followed to it's logical conclusion, isn't it? Where else would you end up if you start out by trying to end differences in people's capacity to get their laundry done?

Portions of a hilarious interview with the Itlaian reporter who was kidnapped and then ransomed back. She's so full of it!!! She actualyl says that she tried to interview refugees from Fallujah, but they wouldn't agree with her "truths" and would not give her fodder for attacking American policy. To her mind that means they were cowed by American soldiers. The thought that they might disagree with her never crosses her mind! This woman needs a dose of reality, whcih you would think getting kidnapped would do for her. In fact on her way there someone advised her to be very careful and not get kidnapped, to which she responded that they didn't understand the situation, and she would never get kidnapped because she's on the side of the Iraqis and against the Americans. When will people like her realize that to be on the side of the Iraqis IS to be on the side of the Americans. And to be against the Iraqis is to be in favor of primarily foreign terrorists with an agenda consisting entirely of death and violence.

Georgia Tech lost a tough game to Duke today in the finals of the NCAA tournament. Although the refs really seemed one-sided, with even Duke-lover Dick Vitale agreeing with one particularly bad, and important, call right before the end of the game. Looked to me like Redick pulled on Jarret Jack's shirt. The ref blew the whistle and called Jack for the foul. He should have kept his shirt out of Redick's hand, I guess. Anyway, Tech played pretty well, with some tought, tough defense. Duke scored jsut one field goal in the last 11 minutes, which is mind-boggling. Unfortunately they got to the foul line a whole bunch of times in that period, and they hit most of those. What it came down to was two things. That B.S. foul I mentioned above, and the fact that Tech couldn't drain their shots at the end when it counted.

The selection show is almost horrifyingly boring, but also incredibly compelling. I told my Dad earlier today that we'd end up a 6, maybe a 5. Got the 5. Watched them point out various geometrical objects with school names in them. Talk of pods, bubbles, regions, bracket breakers, and cinderellas can make March a nearly incomprehensible jumble of nonsense to the non-fan. Add to that the team names, from the Tarheels to the Salukis, the Demon Deacons and the Lobos, and every one with a new cast of characters. It's the best time of the year in sports, and I will be watching as much as I possibly can. In HD!

Volokh rocks!!!

I wonder how Germany's economy went after they began the "Final Solution?" Considering they stole the assets of a good portion of their population, which included a high percentage of the merchant class, and then killed them off, you would think it would have made commerce a bit chaotic.

This is very cool!

Woo hoo!! I just found out that I was accepted to grad school. So in 5 years I should have an MBA and be fully vested in my 401k and retirement plan.

I had a very successful shopping trip this weekend. Right now I'm wearing a French Blue shirt from Kenneth Cole with a black silk tie, and black pinstripe pants. I know I look good because four of my femaile coworkers in my department came to my cublicle to stare at me a for a minute. There was a lot of oohing and aahing, and one girl even said I look like I have lots of money. Boy was she wrong!

Someone in the letters to the editor in the AJC today made a damn good point about yesterday's Supreme Court decision to not allow people convicted under 18 to be executed. If someone under 18 cannot be held responsible for their crimes because they are too young to be able to make a proper decision, then they are also too young to make the decision to have an abortion. Both huge, life-altering decisions, yet the law says someone under 18 is competent enough to end a human life, but at the same time cannot be held responsible for ending a human life. That makes no sense. Either people under 18 can have abortions, be executed, drink, drive, etc., or they cannot. They are either competent enough to make big decisions, or they aren't. Considering how our society coddles young people, maybe they aren't, but please remember that for most of human history an 18 year old was an adult, married with children in many societies.

The Supreme Court has been overstepping its bounds lately. The most recent is the ruling that states cannot execute people convicted under the age of 18. I'm not going to judge whether I agree or not, just want to say that the Supreme Court is supposed to make ruling based on the Constitution, and there is nothing in the Constitution about the age at which you can be executed. The judgement referenced "the will of the majority" and "the international consensus," which are two things which the Supreme Court specifically should ignore. The entire basis of our system of government is that minorities will not be at the mercy of the tyranny of the majority, but apparantely the Supreme Court (scratch that, the left-wing of the Supreme Court, as I know Scalia dissented, and I bet that Thomas did as well) missed that day in social studies. As far as the international consensus goes, who the fuck cares what the rest of the world thinks? Until recently one of the things that was so great about the United States is that we did things our way, despite the rest of the world, and that has made us the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world. But the Supreme Court doesn't like that and wants to start modeling our laws on the rest of the world.

I hope the Republicans can get some conservative justices in who are strict constructionists. None of the possibilities I've seen for the higher court nominations are really all that far out there. Conservative, yes, strict constructionists, yes, religious fanatics, no! Oh, for those who don't know, strict constructionists read the Constitution as meaning exactly what it says, and they don't "reinterpret" it, as seems so popular on the left (and some right, when the occassion calls for it) throughout the last 100 years (social security, for instance, is something that has no place according to the Constitution, which lays out the powers of government, none of which include stealing money from my paycheck to give to old people).

More on the silliness of gun control and the people who support it in this article.

If she was a politician, she'd ahve been smarter. She could have pulled something like Congress did a few years ago. Some senators got some campaign finance reform laws passed which made it so they couldn't take money from PACs. Then they took money from newly independent groups like moveon.org instead. They didn't break the law they passed, because they made sure to leave loopholes. They merely proved again that much of our elected leaders have little integrity.

I haven't had time to read all of this article, but it looked to be a well thought-out essay on terrorism int eh Arab world, and its causes. He blames the "West" for sympathizing with the Palestinians in their use of terror for opening up the entire Arab world to martyrism.