Numb +++++++ Noise (12")

Celebrity Heaven or Hell

2006-04-12T01:11:00.000-04:00

http://www.celebrityheavenorhell.com

today is Sharon Stone

Hollywood to Sell Digital Films Online

2006-04-03T14:27:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES - Hollywood studios will start selling digital versions of films such as 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'King Kong' on the Internet this week, the first time major movies have been available online to own.

The films can't be burned onto a disc for viewing on a DVD player. Still, the move is seen as a step toward full digital distribution of movies over the Internet.

Six studios said Monday that sales will begin through the download Web site Movielink. The site is jointly owned by five of the seven major studios."

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Bloomberg, Bambaataa, Etc.

2006-03-31T10:11:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg, Bambaataa, Etc.
FILE UNDER: City Hall, Mike Bloomberg

Wearing a dark pinstripe suit, open white shirt, mirror sunglasses and braided pony tail, Ice-T walked into the Blue Room for his City Hall press conference. 'We were here lobbyin for movie stuff and we got it,' he boasted to a gaggle of political reporters. When the Mayor arrived, welcoming everyone to City Hall 'or my crib as I like to call it,' Ice-T moved behind him, puffing out his chest and clenching his fists by his hips in a tough guy pose. Def Jam founder and Bloomberg campaigner Russell Simmons, ('my man Russell,' as the Mayor called him) stood next to Ice-T and rubbed worry beads while Bloomberg said the words 'Wu-Tang Clan.' The trio had come together to announce that VH1's annual hip-hop honors show would be staying in New York, beating out competition from Los Angeles."

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Student tries to spend spring break at Wal-Mart

2006-03-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

WINDSOR HEIGHTS, Iowa - Skyler Bartels kept looking over his shoulder. It's a habit he picked up living at the Windsor Heights Wal-Mart for three days.

story written by Mark Hansen: Des Moines Register columnist

Really living there. Eating, sleeping, checking out the DVDs, never leaving. The plan was to spend his entire spring break there. Under the radar.

Some kids go to Cancun. Skyler Bartels, a Drake University sophomore from Harvard, Neb., went to the garden and patio department.

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DefJam Shuns iTunes

2006-03-27T17:25:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to boost record sales DefJam has decided not to release advance singles on iTunes or any other digital music provider. They tested this new strategy with R&B singer Ne-Yo.

The idea is to wait for the album to come out, then release the singles for individual sales. In this case it worked. Soundscan reported that in the first week of Ne-Yo's release he sold 301,000 copies, making it the biggest debut so far this year."

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Eta 'to declare ceasefire'

2006-03-23T22:30:00.000-05:00

"The Basque separatist group Eta's announcement of plans for a permanent ceasefire today received a cautious welcome from the Spanish government.

A statement released to a television station and local newspaper said the group planned to begin a 'permanent' ceasefire on Friday, bringing an end to almost 40 years of violence."

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Apple attacks plan to open iTunes

2006-03-23T06:05:00.000-05:00

"Apple has criticised a French law that could break the locks tying songs from the iTunes store to iPod players.

In a statement Apple said that if the law were passed it would result in 'state-sponsored piracy'.

The law to open up all online music stores is due to go to France's upper house of parliament for final approval.

The French government said the law was drawn up to ensure no single company dominated the fast growing music download market."

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Amazon accused of anti-abortion bias

2006-03-22T07:14:00.000-05:00

Amazon, the online bookseller, has been thrust centre-stage in the American abortion debate as pro-choice groups expressed anger that customers typing in 'abortion' were offered listings on adoption.

The company was forced to defend itself against suggestions it had given a political slant to results from its supposedly neutral search technology.

Campaigners complained that requests for information on abortion generated the response 'Did you mean adoption?' at the top of the page. They expressed their suspicion that Amazon was tampering with its search results to appease pro-life groups, and expressing what appeared to be an 'editorial position'.

Amazon has hurriedly taken down the question but continues to risk the ire of pro-choice groups because adoption is still listed as a related topic. Customers are not offered listings on abortion when they search on adoption."

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Newspaper sues for documents in NSA wiretap case

2006-03-22T07:11:00.000-05:00

The company that publishes the Oregonian newspaper in Portland has filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Oregon to unseal documents in a pending case that alleges the Bush administration illegally intercepted international phone conversations between the codirector of an Islamic charity and his two lawyers in the United States.

In a motion filed Friday, lawyers for the Oregonian Publishing Co. argued that it is in the public interest to know the contents of documents that could prove the existence of a potentially illegal domestic spying program.

'This appears to be the first case in which documents have been filed with the court demonstrating the National Security Agency's practice of wiretapping private conversations,' said Charles F. Hinkle, a lawyer for the publishing company. 'We are not interested in the content of the attorney-client communications. We are interested in what the government did.

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South Park' Chef Back After Scientology Skirmish

2006-03-22T07:09:00.000-05:00

Soul singer Isaac Hayes may have quit his job as the voice of Chef on 'South Park' after a disagreement over religion, but his character will live on when the satiric cable TV cartoon returns to Comedy Central this week, the network said Monday.

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Sales Of The Notorious B.I.G.'s Debut Album Halted

2006-03-20T04:19:00.000-05:00

The only album that The Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace) released before his death was his 1994 debut Ready To Die. Now, thanks to an allegedly unauthorized sample, sales of that album have been halted.

The AP reports that a jury has found in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit that puts the hip-hop tradition of 'sampling' back into the limelight. Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records, the companies who own the rights to the music of legendary group The Ohio Players, sued Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy LLC, Justin Combs Publishing, and Universal Records claiming that the title song of Ready To Die used a sample from the Ohio Players track 'Singing In The Morning' without permission."

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Negative Perception Of Islam Increasing

2006-03-09T12:30:00.000-05:00

As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence."

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Google Looks Sunny

2006-03-09T12:25:00.000-05:00

"Google has just let slip its intentions to offer Online Storage facilities, 'creating a mirror image of data stored on hard drives,' according to a Reuters report filed in the early hours of this morning. The revelations were apparently picked up by bloggers who captured notes put up on the company web site not intended for publication:"

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Toronto to get Wi-Fi

2006-03-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

"Toronto is set to join a small but growing club of North American cities that will offer municipal wireless Internet access.

In a press release issued Sunday, Toronto Hydro Telecom said it would make an announcement Tuesday morning, when Mayor David Miller, Toronto Hydro chairman Clare Copeland and Toronto Hydro Telecom president David Dobbin will say they want a piece of the growing Wi-Fi market.

The project will put Toronto in the company of other cities that have made similar announcements recently, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans and Chicago. Via Rail recently announced it would offer Wi-Fi service on trains on the Quebec-Windsor corridor."

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NES DVD Player

2006-03-09T12:11:00.000-05:00

"VintageComputing managed to fit a CyberHome CH-DVD 300 DVD player into an old NES case, complete with retractable DVD tray, infared receiver, functional remote control, and stereo/S-Video/RCA jacks. This almost beats the Mac Mini NES we covered a few day ago. Look for more pics, a feature list, and one video clip after the jump."

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World’s Smallest USB Drive?

2006-03-09T12:06:00.000-05:00

TechEBlog » World’s Smallest USB Drive?

Calif. School Suspends 20 Who Saw Web Site

2006-03-03T12:55:00.000-05:00

"COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) -- A middle school student faces expulsion for allegedly posting graphic threats against a classmate on the popular MySpace.com Web site, and 20 of his classmates were suspended for viewing the posting, school officials said.

Police are investigating the boy's comments about his classmate at TeWinkle Middle School as a possible hate crime, and the district is trying to expel him.

According to three parents of the suspended students, the invitation to join the boy's MySpace group gave no indication of the alleged threat. They said the MySpace social group name's was 'I hate (girl's name)' and included an expletive and an anti-Semitic reference."

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$1.5 million painting gets 12-year-old's gum - Mar 1, 2006

2006-03-02T07:23:00.000-05:00

"DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- Apparently, one 12-year-old visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts doesn't think much of abstract art.

The boy stuck a wad of gum to a $1.5 million painting called 'The Bay' by Helen Frankenthaler, leaving a stain the size of a quarter, officials said.

The boy, who was not identified because of his age, was part of a school group that was visiting the museum last week when officials said he took a piece of gum out of his mouth and stuck it on the 1963 painting. (Watch why the boy put the goo on the canvas, see the stain -- 1:32)

The gum stuck to the painting's lower left corner and did not adhere to the fiber of the canvas, officials told the Detroit Free Press. But it left a chemical residue about the size of a quarter, said Becky Hart, assistant curator of contemporary art."

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Sonic Teenager Deterrent

2006-03-01T15:58:00.000-05:00

"Teenagers have a new enemy and it goes by the name of Sonic Teenager Deterrent. The device which can be attached to the outside wall of shops, offices and homes, sends out ultra high-pitched 80-decibel bursts(up to 16khz) of pulsing sounds that can be heard by those under the age of 20. Adults are not affected by the sounds due to the body’s ability to detect some frequency waves disappear after the age of 20. "

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Why hackers are taking a bite of Apple |

2006-02-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

"Through a decade of marriage, four children, three moves, and several job changes, my wife and I have only had one real disagreement: What computer to use.

I have chosen the path of enlightenment - I'm a PC guy all the way. My wife has chosen a darker, more sinister route - she's a Mac user. (Had she written this column, the descriptions of the paths would be reversed.)

In one area, however, she holds the superior position - security. More than once, I've caught her smirking as I go through the weekly security checks on my PC. Have I downloaded all the latest antivirus updates? What about my spyware protection? Is my firewall working properly?

But if recent news of Mac worms and vulnerabilities are any indication, my wife, and other Mac users, soon will be going through the same weekly security checks employed by PC"

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Rolling Stones to Hold Concert in China

2006-02-28T22:38:00.000-05:00

"The Rolling Stones will hold their first-ever concert in China in April, Chinese promoters said Tuesday, three years after canceling a pair of shows on the mainland because of the
SARS outbreak.

The rock greats will play Shanghai's Grand Stage, an 8,000-seat converted indoor stadium, on April 8, according to an announcement from Emma Entertainment.

'The Rolling Stones first-ever concert in China, do not miss it,' the Beijing-based company said on its Web site. Tickets range from $38-$375, the site said."

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Actor Tries to Trademark 'N' Word

2006-02-28T22:35:00.000-05:00

"The actor Damon Wayans has been engaged in a 14-month fight to trademark the term 'Nigga' for a clothing line and retail store, a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online database reveals.

Wayans wants to dress customers in 14 kinds of attire from tops to bottoms, and use the controversial mark on 'clothing, books, music and general merchandise,' as well as movies, TV and the internet, according to his applications.

But, so far, his applications have been unsuccessful. Trademark examiner Kelly Boulton rejected the registration dated Dec. 22, citing a law that prohibits marks that are 'immoral or scandalous.' A previous attempt by Wayans was turned down on identical grounds six months earlier."

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Teenager fined £80 for swear word

2006-02-23T23:44:00.000-05:00

"A teenager is refusing to pay an £80 on-the-spot fine imposed by a police officer who overheard him swearing in a private conversation with friends.

Kurt Walker, 18, from Deal, Kent, said he would go to court rather than pay the fine handed out in a town park.

He said he received the fixed-penalty notice after he used the F-word to a group of friends he met in the park.

Kent Police said fixed penalty notices were just one tool to help them to tackle anti-social behaviour."

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Boy charged with felony for carrying sugar

2006-02-23T05:25:00.000-05:00

"A 12-year-old Aurora boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug, Aurora police have confirmed.

The sixth-grade student at Waldo Middle School was also suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends.

The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said he brought the bag to school to ask his science teacher if he could run an experiment using sugar."

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Judge: Google Violates Porn Copyrights

2006-02-22T18:42:00.000-05:00

"A federal court judge has concluded that an image search service run by Google Inc. infringes on the copyrights of adult entertainment company Perfect 10 Inc. by displaying small versions of its images in search results.

But U.S. District Court Judge Howard Matz said that based on evidence submitted at a preliminary injunction hearing, Google could not be held responsible when viewers click on the images and are directed to third-party sites that contain full-size images stolen from Perfect 10's Web site."

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Italian minister puts Mohammad cartoon on T-shirts

2006-02-22T18:23:00.000-05:00

"Italy's Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli has had T-shirts made emblazoned with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a move that could embarrass Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.

Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, told Ansa news agency on Tuesday that the West had to stand up against Islamist extremists and offered to hand out T-shirts to anyone who wanted them.

'I have had T-shirts made with the cartoons that have upset Islam and I will start wearing them today,' Ansa quoted Calderoli as saying."

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Americas | US 'reclassifying' public files

2006-02-22T18:08:00.000-05:00

"US intelligence agencies have been removing thousands of historical documents from public access, the New York Times has reported.

The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 pages began in 1999, the paper said.

At that time, the CIA and five other agencies reportedly objected to what they saw as a 'hasty release' of sensitive information."

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BBC Blasted for Madonna's Live 8 Profanity

2006-02-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

"The BBC has been chastised by the UK media regulator for broadcasting profanity and offensive language from artists including Madonna, Green Day and Snoop Dogg during last summer's Live 8 concert.

Ofcom criticised the BBC's failure to use a standard delay to filter out offensive language during the event, which gathered more than a billion people in cities across the world to pressure rich nations to do more for the poor."

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It’s official, 8 different flavors of Windows Vista

2006-02-21T05:44:00.000-05:00

"Because choices are good? Or because there would be more money to be milked? Perhaps the victims of having 8 different flavors of Windows Vista are the software vendors, who would have to explain the differences between each edition to their customers.

Here’s a quick rundown of the 8 product editions:"

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Songbird - The Music/Web Player

2006-02-21T05:42:00.000-05:00

"Songbird is a new web player that soon will be coming out of the woodwork. It looks good. I managed to download the proof of concept from their site.

The download isn’t fully functional at this time, but it has given a good idea of what tune the Songbird is singing.

Songbird was built from Mozilla’s popular open source (that means free to use and modify) web browser, Firefox. It will run on Windows, Mac OS X and even Linux.

Because Songbird is open source, it has some added features that are different than the popular players seen today."

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Apple's ode to hackers - Feb 17, 2006

2006-02-20T18:51:00.000-05:00

"Apple Computer Inc. has resorted to a poetic broadside in the inevitable cat-and-mouse game between hackers and high-tech companies.

The maker of Macintosh computers had anticipated that hackers would try to crack its new OS X operating system built to work on Intel Corp.'s chips and run pirated versions on non-Apple computers. So, Apple developers embedded a warning deep in the software -- in the form of a poem.

Indeed, a hacker encountered the poem recently, and a copy of it has been circulating on Mac-user Web sites this week."

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Henry's terror flight |

2006-02-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

"US rocker and writer Henry Rollins was reported to the National Security hotline during his recent Australian tour because of a book he was reading on flight to Brisbane.
A furious Rollins was informed he was 'nominated as a possible threat' for reading Jihad: The Rise Of Militant Islam In Central Asia.

The incident happened on a flight from Auckland on the recent Big Day Out tour."

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1.2 petabytes of storage

2006-02-17T16:04:00.000-05:00

"Can you imagine world without data compression? And where you never have to back anything up?

US inventor Michael Thomas, owner of Colossal Storage, hopes to achieve exactly that. He says he's the first person to solve non-contact optical spintronics which will in turn utlimately result in the creation of 3.5-inch discs with a million times the capacity of any hard drive - 1.2 petabytes of storage, to be exact.

To put that into perspective, mega is 1,024 times kilo, giga is 1,024 times mega, tera is 1,024 times giga and peta is 1,024 times tera."

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Students embracing virtual sex

2006-02-17T05:32:00.000-05:00

"Call it a sexual revolution of the virtual kind -- young Canadians are practicing a new style of safe sex and the only touching required involves a keyboard.

Of more than 2,500 university and college students polled across Canada, 87 percent of them are having sex over instant messenger, webcams or the telephone, according to results of a national survey released on Monday.

'We were very surprised,' Noah Gurza, a founder of Toronto-based CampusKiss.com, an online dating community for students, which commissioned a Canadian CampusKiss & Tell Survey."

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Blind student sues Target over firm's Web site / It lacks software that allows access to visually impaired

2006-02-16T15:41:00.000-05:00

"A blind UC Berkeley student is suing Target Corp., saying the retailer is violating the civil rights of those who cannot see because its Web site is inaccessible to them.

Although it might seem odd that the blind would use a Web site like www.target.com, advocates for the blind said Wednesday that computer software and coding embedded in Web sites makes surfing the Internet as easy for those who cannot see as it is for those who can."

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Gates: End to passwords in sight

2006-02-16T15:38:00.000-05:00

"For years, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has had his sights set on the password as the weak link in the computer security chain.

Now, with Windows Vista, Gates feels he finally has the right weapons to supplant the password as a means of verifying who is who on computers and over the Internet.

The new operating system, due later this year, introduces a concept called InfoCards that gives users a better way to manage the plethora of Internet login names and passwords, as well as lets third parties help in the verification process. Vista will also make it easier to log on to PCs using something stronger than a password alone, such as a smart card."

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US attacks UN Guantanamo report

2006-02-16T15:34:00.000-05:00

"The White House has savaged a UN report demanding the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp calling it 'a discredit to the UN'.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said investigators failed to examine the facts and that their time would be better spent studying other cases.

The report says the US should try all approximately 500 inmates, or free them 'without further delay'."

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325,000 Names on Terrorism List

2006-02-15T15:22:00.000-05:00

"The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

The list kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency -- contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials."

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YouTube - Crazy Multi-Input Touch Screen

2006-02-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

YouTube - Crazy Multi-Input Touch Screen

Bush Spent $1.6 Bil. on 'Spin'

2006-02-14T12:53:00.000-05:00

"DALLAS The Bush Administration spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising agencies over the past two-and-a-half years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released by House Democrats today.

With spending on public relations and other media included, federal agencies spent $1.6 billion on what some Democrats called 'spin.'"

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White House 'knew of floods'

2006-02-14T12:51:00.000-05:00

"CONGRESSIONAL investigators had learned a federal official's eyewitness account of the New Orleans flooding reached the Homeland Security Department the night before the Bush administration has said it learned of the disaster, the New York Times has reported.
The newspaper said a Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman sent an e-mail at 9:27pm on Monday, August 29, the day the levee broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to the chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff."

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What the 'Left Behind' Series Really Means

2006-02-14T12:50:00.000-05:00

"A Whore That Sitteth on Many Waters

'Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.'
-- From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

'The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God.'
-- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series

That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America’s all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of the last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go beserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower. Jesus -- who apparently has a much nastier streak than we have been led to believe -- merely speaks and 'the bodies of the enemy are ripped wide open down the middle.' "

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CHE-FING OVER DEL TORO FLICK

2006-02-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

CONSERVATIVE film buffs are disgusted that director Steven Soderbergh has Benicio del Toro playing Communist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara as a hero in a movie shooting all over New York."

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Motion Filed to Stop Katrina Evictions

2006-02-13T23:59:00.000-05:00

"About 12,000 families made homeless by last year's hurricanes were scheduled to be forced out of their federally-funded hotel rooms Monday, but lawyers for the evacuees were hoping for a last-minute reprieve.

Attorneys on Sunday delivered papers to the home of U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval, asking him to grant a temporary restraining order to stall the evictions. By late Sunday night there was still no word on Duval's ruling."

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Critical documentary on Wal-Mart stirs Berlin fest

2006-02-12T12:18:00.000-05:00

"A documentary on the perils of runaway capitalism that spotlights Wal-Mart screened at the Berlin Film Festival on Saturday, and interest among European distributors and television networks has been strong.

The feature-length documentary focuses on working conditions at the U.S. retail giant and argues that the company treats its employees shabbily in pursuit of maximum profit.

'Wal-Mart is the poster child for the worst in corporate behavior,' U.S. director Robert Greenwald said in an interview after his film, 'Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,' screened to a large and appreciative audience."

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Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons

2006-02-12T12:15:00.000-05:00

"Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.

The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny.

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten."

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European Papers Benefit in Cartoon Uproar

2006-02-10T10:23:00.000-05:00

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! That street corner cry of yesteryear is resonating at some European publications that have enjoyed a boom in sales and Web traffic after printing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have stoked outrage across the Islamic world.

Denmark's biggest-circulation broadsheet, Jyllands-Posten, triggered the controversy in September by publishing 12 cartoons of the prophet, including one showing his turban as a bomb. Its weekday circulation of about 154,000 hasn't moved much.

But for newspapers in France and Norway that reprinted the drawings with much international ado, sometimes in defense of free speech, the caricatures have become a profile boost and tonic for lackluster sales."

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Gretzky Knew About Gambling

2006-02-10T10:22:00.000-05:00

Wayne Gretzky was recorded on a wiretap talking to the alleged financier of a gambling ring, discussing how the hockey great's wife could avoid being implicated, a person with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Gretzky, coach and part-owner of the
Phoenix Coyotes, can be heard on wiretaps made within the past month talking about his wife with assistant coach Rick Tocchet, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Gretzky's wife, actress Janet Jones, allegedly bet at least $100,000 on football games over the course of the investigation by state authorities, the person said."

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Mayor: New Orleans will seek aid from other nations

2006-02-09T08:52:00.000-05:00

NEW ORLEANS, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Shortcomings in aid from the U.S. government are making New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin look to other nations for help in rebuilding his hurricane-damaged city.

Nagin, who has hosted a steady stream of foreign dignitaries since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August, says he may seek international assistance because U.S. aid has not been sufficient to get the city back on its feet."

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Publish or Not? Muhammad Cartoons Still Vexing U.S. Editors

2006-02-09T08:51:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK Editors across the country continue to face difficult decisions surrounding the cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad, which have set off rioting abroad. Few American papers have published the cartoon so far, although several have shown them on their Web sites or provided Web links.

* Four top editors at the New York Press, a weekly in New York City, resigned Tuesday after being ordered, they claim, to pull the Danish cartoons -- from an issue that centers on the dispute. Editor in chief Harry Siegel charged that the Press leadership 'has suborned its own professed principles. For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed to print simple and not especially offensive editorial cartoons that have been used as a pretext for great and greatly menacing violence directed against journalists, cartoonists, humanitarian aid workers, diplomats and others who represent the basic values and obligations of Western civilization.'"

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NASA Telescope Spots Mega Solar Systems

2006-02-09T08:47:00.000-05:00

Astronomers said Wednesday they have spotted evidence of two mega solar systems — giant stars enveloped by what appear to be huge disks of planet-forming dust.

Cloudy disks around stars are believed to represent current or future planetary systems. Our sun is surrounded by the Kuiper Belt, a disk containing dust, comets and other bodies.

Astronomers said the latest findings were surprising because such massive stars are thought to be inhospitable to the formation of planets."

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PETA's 'Milk Gone Wild' campaign

2006-02-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

I was looking around peta.org after hearing that Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails made an anti-fur video. I came across the ‘Milk Gone Wild’ advertisement, which had supposedly been banned from the Superbowl. (It seems like PETA should be using their money to save the whales, not pay for $1,000,000 advertising slots.) Anyway, while on the website, milkgonewild.com I came across the following graphic

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Woman Accused of Mailing Condom Explosives

2006-02-09T08:19:00.000-05:00

A former strip club waitress mailed condoms filled with a potentially explosive mixture to a television station, strip clubs and other places, saying she was tired of being mistreated by men, according to court documents.

In FBI documents unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boston, Kimberly Lynn Dasilva, 40, said she 'couldn't take it anymore.'

None of the condoms exploded. They each contained a mixture of drain-cleaning detergent and gasoline, which could explode when combined, authorities said. Dasilva told investigators she did not think they would explode."

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Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease

2006-02-08T06:55:00.000-05:00

The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.

The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today."

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The End of the Internet?

2006-02-08T06:41:00.000-05:00

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out. "

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How Much Does 'Free' Cost?

2006-02-07T11:12:00.000-05:00

We are constantly amazed by the ingenuity of online scammers.

Here's one of our favorite examples. Try typing 'Firefox' into the search box on Google, Yahoo! or MSN. Now check out the paid advertisement for “FreeDownloadHQ.com.” On Google, you should see something like this:

Most experienced Web users know that the best way to download Firefox is to go to an aggregator like download.com or directly to Mozilla. Furthermore, savvy users know the difference between sponsored links and the main organic results to the left and below.

Not so for the casual user. Blame it on them if you must, but studies show that most users don’t know the difference between paid and natural search results. As far as they’re concerned, the highlighted ad is the “first” result.

Clicking that “first” result for Firefox brings you to this website:

In the Orwellian world of dark-alley Internet marketing, the word “Free” in the site’s title generally means you’ll be paying somehow – either with cash or spam or adware on your computer. After all, this “free” site just paid Google top dollar for my click. As always at SiteAdvisor, we ask how someone makes their money if they're paying to attract our"

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Super Bowl XL '06 Commercials

2006-02-07T11:01:00.000-05:00

SpikedHumor's collection of the Superbowl XL commercials - in case you missed any or want to see them again."

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Woman who caught shark could be fined

2006-02-07T10:54:00.000-05:00

The woman who caught a shark the size of a small car while ice fishing earlier this week could be fined because she didn't have the proper fishing permits.

Diane Guillemette was fishing with her partner in the Saguenay fiord - where waters from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean meet about 250 kilometres north of Quebec City - when she caught a Greenland shark."

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Transparent OLED for the Sci-fi effects

2006-02-07T10:53:00.000-05:00

Remember those cool transparent display panels that we often see in movies such as Minority Report? Thanks to the researchers over at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP, the technology might be made possible in our everyday gadgets in a near future.

“We achieved this result by using a new type of metal electrode to supply the polymer film with electric current,” reports Armin Wedel of the IAP. “The clue of the transparency lies in its physical properties.”

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Kristof of 'NYT' Starts Pledge Drive to Back Bill O'Reilly Trip

2006-02-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

"New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof resumed his exchange with TV/radio talkster Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday, asking readers to contribute to a fund to send O'Reilly to Darfur.

Kristof said he would ante up the first $1000.

The 'feud' began last December when O'Reilly denounced Kristof as a 'left-wing ideologue.' Kristof replied by challenging O'Reilly to show truly 'traditional values' by joining him on a visit to Darfur to assess the death and devastation there, thereby 'using your talents for an important cause.'

Kristof in his Tuesday column revealed that a few days ago he got this answer: 'I do three hours of daily news analysis on TV and radio. There's no way I can go to Africa.'"

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No More Telegrams

2006-02-07T10:38:00.000-05:00

It's the end of an era. You saw the bad guy in a Robert Young western holding a gun to the operator's head and forcing him to write a terse message. You saw Loretta Young and even earlier movie stars receiving good or bad news from the hotel bellboy in the form of a piece of folded paper on a tray.

Yes, the era of the telegram, a time-honored method of communication for 150 years, came to a quiet end last Friday when Western Union delivered its final telegram. Check it out here."

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Hundreds in Iran Protest Muhammad Drawings

2006-02-07T10:12:00.000-05:00

Hundreds of angry protesters hurled stones and fire bombs at the Danish Embassy in the Iranian capital Monday to protest publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Police used tear gas and surrounded the walled villa to hold back the crowd.

It was the second attack on a Western mission in Tehran on Monday. Earlier in the day, 200 student demonstrators threw stones at the Austrian Embassy, breaking windows and starting small fires. The mission was targeted because Austria holds the presidency of the European Union."

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German BMW Banned From Google

2006-02-06T07:08:00.000-05:00

From what it looks like, the German websites of car maker BMW have been kicked out of the Google index. BMW.de at this time has a PageRank of 0. A search for BMW Germany, which only days ago yielded BMW.de as a top result, now doesn’t show any sign of BMW.de at all. Instead, BMW.com – BMW’s international site – is on top for this search.

The reason for the ban is likely to be that the BMW websites have been caught employing a technique used by black-hat search engine optimizers: doorway pages. German and international bloggers last week were quick to spread the news."

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Coretta Scott King Dies at 78

2006-01-31T21:51:00.000-05:00

Coretta Scott King, who worked to keep her husband's dream alive with a chin-held-high grace and serenity that made her a powerful symbol of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s creed of brotherhood and nonviolence, died Tuesday. She was 78.

The 'first lady of the civil rights movement' died in her sleep during the night at an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico, her family said. Arrangements were being made to fly the body back to Atlanta.

She had been recovering from a serious stroke and heart attack suffered last August. Just two weeks ago, she made her first public appearance in a year on the eve of her late husband's birthday."

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Activist Cindy Sheehan Arrested at Capitol

2006-01-31T21:50:00.000-05:00

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in
Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was taken into custody by police in the House gallery Tuesday night just before
President Bush's State of the Union address.

Police escorted Sheehan from the visitors' gallery above the House chamber after she caused a disruption, said a Capitol Police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident were sketchy.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey D-Calif., had invited Sheehan to the address as her guest.

'I'm proud that Cindy's my guest tonight,' Woolsey said in an interview before the speech. 'She has made a difference in the debate to bring our troops home from Iraq.'"

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Los Angeles sues over 'Grand Theft Auto' game

2006-01-30T04:04:00.000-05:00

The city of Los Angeles has sued Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (Nasdaq:TTWO - news) for selling pornographic video games to children with its best-selling game 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,' which last year was found to have hidden sex scenes.

Shares of Take-Two plunged 13.7 percent to $14.69 on the Nasdaq -- a level unseen since 2003 -- after an analyst downgraded its shares to 'sell' from 'neutral,' citing a variety of financial, operational and management risks.

Los Angeles City Attorney Rockard Delgadillo, in the suit filed on Thursday, accused the game publisher of failing to disclose the pornographic content to get the game onto shelves of major retailers that do not carry games rated 'Adults Only 18+.'"

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Miller accuses Armstrong and Bonds of doping

2006-01-30T04:00:00.000-05:00

Never shy of drawing glaring publicity, American skier Bode Miller stirred another hornets' nest Friday by accusing cycling legend Lance Armstrong and baseball slugger Barry Bonds of doping.

'Right now, if you want to cheat, you can,' said Miller, who is the reigning World Cup overall champion and a key component of the US team that will compete in the February 10-26 Turin
Winter Olympics.

'Barry Bonds and those guys are just knowingly cheating, but there's all sorts of loopholes,' he told the Rolling Stone magazine.

'If you say it has to be 'knowingly,' you do what Lance (Armstrong) and all those guys do, where every morning their doctor gives them a box of pills and they don't ask anything, they just take the pills.

'Yeah, they're not knowingly taking any substance, they don't ask what it is, but they are sure taking it.'"

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How Not To Destroy Your Online Business Instantly: The Chitika Example

2006-01-29T21:21:00.000-05:00

By Dan Amato

Chitika eMiniMalls burst onto the online scene and dominated it quickly. They used a unique advertising display that allowed websites to place products on their site easily and get paid for people who clicked through. The Internet was on fire with website owners touting how much money they were making. They seemed to get glowing reviews everywhere and other than a few complaints on customer service they were looked very highly upon.

Chitika launched their eMiniMalls in October, 2005 and quickly displaced other forms of advertising on many a website. Some website owners even going as far as removing Google AdSense and other pay per click advertising forms from their websites in favor of Chitika. Running on a 30 day pay schedule, those who used the advertising in October would see their first revenue checks coming around the First of December, 2005 at the latest."

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Bono sees Red...card; Amex venture to help fund AIDS fight

2006-01-28T01:01:00.000-05:00

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Rock star Bono joined three leading fashion groups and American Express on Thursday to launch Product Red, an ambitious branding and fund-raising effort with the declared aim of beating AIDS.

'This is really sexy to me. It is sexy to want to change the world,' said Irish singer Bono, holding aloft a new Amex 'Red Card' whose reverse side carries the statement: 'This card is designed to eliminate HIV in Africa.'"

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Google agrees to China censorship - Jan 24, 2006

2006-01-25T15:45:00.000-05:00

Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company planned to roll out a new version of its search engine bearing China's Web suffix '.cn,' on Wednesday. A Chinese-language version of Google's search engine has previously been available through the company's dot-com address in the United States.

By creating a unique address for China, Google hopes to make its search engine more widely available and easier to use in the world's most populous country."

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West Poses As Jesus for Rolling Stone

2006-01-24T16:12:00.000-05:00

Kanye West, with a crown of thorns atop his head, poses as Jesus Christ on the cover of the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone.

The outspoken rapper defends his brash attitude inside the magazine's pages, on newsstands Friday. He is also pictured posing as Muhammad Ali.

'In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts,' he says. 'You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?'"

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Nervous censors in China delay release of 'Memoirs of a Geisha'

2006-01-22T20:39:00.000-05:00

Memoirs of a Geisha, the hit film based on a best-selling book, has run into trouble in China, home to its leading actresses. Prompted by fears that it will further inflame already rampant anti-Japanese feeling, Chinese film censors have cancelled the planned release of the movie next month.

China's two most famous actresses, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, play the leading roles in the film, which was initially approved by the censors. But the state-run Film Bureau has changed its mind. Mao Yu, director of the bureau's propaganda and publishing section, believes Memoirs poses 'complex' problems and is 'too sensitive'. There were complaints in Japan about Chinese actresses portraying Japanese women, but there is outrage in China, where many regard geishas as prostitutes. The 26-year-old Zhang, who shot to fame in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and has since become Asia's most famous actress, has attracted venomous criticism from her compatriots."

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Tom Cruise ‘South Park’ Show Censored :: Hollywood.com

2006-01-20T15:31:00.000-05:00

Tom Cruise has reportedly stopped an episode of South Park that mocks him from being aired in Britain.

The show, in which Nicole Kidman and Cruise's fellow Scientologist John Travolta are depicted attempting to coax an animated version of the actor out of a closet, caused controversy when broadcast in the U.S.

The cartoon Kidman tells Cruise, 'Don't you think this has gone on long enough? It's time for you to come out of the closet. You're not fooling anyone'—referring to allegations about Cruise's sexuality.

According to TheRegister.co.uk, Paramount has agreed not to show the episode again, after Cruise complained.

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Google battles government over porn investigation

2006-01-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

Google (GOOG) on Thursday rebuffed the Bush administration's attempt in federal court to force it to hand over search-engine data on millions of customers.

The Justice Department asked a federal judge in San Jose on Wednesday for an order to turn over the records as part of the adminstration's efforts to revive a controversial online pornography law. The issue is expected to be resolved by March.

Google has already refused to comply with a subpoena, issued in August, to turn over a mountain of material, including all requests entered into Google's search engine from any one-week period and 1 million randomly selected websites from Google databases.

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Black Jesus Film Makes Waves at Sundance

2006-01-20T15:27:00.000-05:00

Billed as the world's first black Jesus movie, 'Son of Man' portrays Christ as a modern African revolutionary and aims to shatter the Western image of a placid savior with fair hair and blue eyes.

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Apple sales outlook rattles shares

2006-01-19T12:10:00.000-05:00

Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) on Wednesday forecast current-quarter results below Wall Street expectations, after strong holiday sales of its iPod led to a near-doubling in quarterly earnings.

Apple shares fell about 3 percent in volatile after-hours trading following the results.

Apple's chief financial officer also said the company's then-pending shift to Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) microchips for its Mac computers caused it to lose some holiday-quarter sales."

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Report: Disney in Talks to Buy Pixar - Yahoo! News

2006-01-19T12:09:00.000-05:00

The Walt Disney Co. is in serious talks to buy Pixar Animation Studios Inc., the maker of the hit movies 'Toy Story' and 'Finding Nemo' among others, following months of exploring how to continue their profitable film distribution partnership, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Citing unnamed people familiar with the plan, the Journal said Disney would pay a nominal premium to Pixar's current market value of $6.7 billion under the deal being discussed in a stock transaction that would make Pixar chief executive
Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder in Disney.

The Journal said the outcome of the talks isn't certain, and that other options are possible.

Telephone messages left Thursday morning for Disney spokeswoman Michelle Bergman in Burbank, Calif., and Pixar's Michele Clarke in New York were not immediately returned.

Pixar shares were up $3.24, or 5.7 percent, to $60.50 in premarket trading while Disney shares were down 22 cents at $25."

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Iran bans CNN journalists after presidential misquote

2006-01-17T17:20:00.000-05:00

Iran on Monday banned CNN journalists from working in the country after the broadcaster misquoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Iran wanted nuclear weapons, the ISNA students news agency said.

CNN's simultaneous translation of Ahmadinejad's lengthy news conference on Saturday included the phrase 'the use of nuclear weapons is Iran's right.'

In fact, what the Iranian president said was that 'Iran has the right to nuclear energy,' the official IRNA news agency reported. CNN later clarified in an apology on Sunday night.

Iran denies any intention of seeking nuclear weapons, saying it wants atomic technology merely for the generation of electricity."

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U2 ticket chaos hits Brazil fans

2006-01-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

Tens of thousands of Brazilian U2 fans were left empty-handed as the first day of ticket sales for a concert in Sao Paulo descended into chaos.

Fans waited in vain for more than 12 hours as tills in the supermarket chain which was selling tickets broke down.

Some 73,000 tickets were on sale with a limit of 10 per person for the 20 February gig. Demand for tickets far exceeded the supply, however.

Organisers apologised and said an extra show would be added for the next day.

Students could buy tickets for half-price, but the cheapest full-price ticket was 200 reais (£50, $88) - about two-thirds of Brazil's minimum monthly wage."

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Safeguard or censorship? Art fair photos draw shield

2006-01-17T17:15:00.000-05:00

Local officials demanded that two photographs of nude porn stars displayed at the palmbeach3 art fair be removed from high-traffic aisles, the director of the Palm Beach gallery exhibiting them and the fair's director said.

A couple of hours before the fair opened Thursday at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, four officials — Mac McLaughlin, president and chief executive officer of the Palm Beach County Convention and Visitors Bureau; Ken Foster, convention center general manager; Dave Anderson, convention center resident manager; and bureau attorney Jim Stuber — approached fair officials about the photographs displayed at Russeck Gallery's booth."

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Stephen Colbert Fights Back About 'Truthiness'

2006-01-13T23:49:00.000-05:00

On 'The Colbert Report,' comedian Stephen Colbert defined 'truthiness' as truth that wouldn't stand to be held back by facts. The word caught on. The American Dialect Society named 'truthiness' the word of the year.

The world's oldest news organization, Colbert says, is the 'No. 1 threat facing America.'

On Wednesday evening, Colbert placed the AP atop the Threat Down segment of 'The Colbert Report' show. What was No. 2?

Bears.

In October, on Colbert's debut episode of the 'Daily Show' spinoff, the comedian defined 'truthiness' as truth that wouldn't stand to be held back by facts. The word caught on, and last week the American Dialect Society named 'truthiness' the word of the year."

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Barbie loses out to veiled rival

2006-01-13T23:48:00.000-05:00

Step aside Barbie - a veiled doll with, as her creator describes it 'Muslim values', is proving a popular choice in Egypt's toy stores.

Fulla, dressed in a traditional Islamic headscarf and overdress, comes with her own pink felt prayer rug.

Some parents who would not want to buy Barbies for their daughters are choosing to give them Fullas instead.

Creators NewBoy Design Studio launched the doll in 2003 and sales have proved strong in the Middle East."

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We'd rather be famous than brainy, say young Britons - Yahoo! News

2006-01-13T23:46:00.000-05:00

Dazzled by the attractions of fame, more than one in 10 young Britons would quit school to become tomorrow's tabloid star, a survey showed on Friday.

In a country obsessed by celebrities, a growing number of children are more interested in becoming rich and famous than getting a good education, according to research from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).

Around nine percent thought fame was a great way to earn money without skills or qualifications.

'Young people realise that you don't need skills for being famous and believe it is easy, which it is not,' Max Clifford, the country's best known publicist, told Reuters."

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A Million to One

2006-01-11T15:48:00.000-05:00

Look what Alex Tew did, and you get one of those 'Why didn't I think of that?' flashes. It's so simple, so cheap, so mind-bogglingly lucrative that it took the 21-year-old student from small-town Wiltshire, England, not even five months to go from broke to millionaire.

Worried about paying his college tuition last August, Tew chanced upon one of those rare original money-making ideas. How about creating an Internet Web page out of 1 million blank pixels? And then selling those pinhead-size digital picture elements that make up a computer screen for a dollar apiece, or $100 per 10-by-10-pixel block, to advertisers who turn them into colorful tiny billboards and micro logos linked to their own Web sites?

And why not call this new marketing monstrosity 'The Million Dollar Homepage' -- since Tew stood to make a million bucks?

At exactly 1:42:28 p.m. EST today, Tew can post a 'sold out' sign on the Million Dollar Homepage. (You can see it at http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ . ) The spiky-haired Brit put the last thousand pixels up for auction on eBay 10 days ago with a $1 starting bid for the lot. With 24 hours to go, yesterday's bidding reached $152,300, putting him over the million-dollar mark.

'I'm half-expecting a last-minute flurry of bids. I think it is going to go higher,' says

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Readers Offered Refund for 'Million Little Pieces'

2006-01-11T15:42:00.000-05:00

"Random House will refund readers who bought James Frey's drug and alcohol memoir 'A Million Little Pieces' directly from the publisher, a move believed to be unprecedented, after the author was accused of exaggerating his story."

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Play it again, pants: Levi's introduces iPod-compatible jeans

2006-01-11T15:41:00.000-05:00

"Jeans giant Levi's is hoping to woo fashionistas and music aficionados alike with its new iPod-compatible RedWire DLX jeans, due out this fall.

With a joystick remote control built into the watch pocket, the new jeans will allow wearers to play, pause, track forward or back and adjust the volume on their iPods without having to take them out of their pockets.

A separate pocket will house and conceal the bulge of the iPod, while a built-in retractable headphone unit is designed to prevent tangled wires.

A red conductive ribbon will keep wearers connected while allowing them to remove the iPod from their pockets to view the screen, the company said."

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Vanilla Ceiling: Magazines Still Shades Of White

2006-01-11T15:39:00.000-05:00

"In the spring of 2000, when Nedra Rhone was still a bright-eyed graduate student at Columbia’s School of Journalism, she had the fortune of landing an interview with a recruiter for Gruner + Jahr’s glossy-covered Fitness magazine. The recruiter was white; Ms. Rhone was black. They chatted amiably for several minutes, small-talking their way through her fitness background and writing experience. And then the recruiter said something that rather surprised her.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you want to work for Essence?’” Ms. Rhone recalled. Essence is not a sibling Gruner + Jahr publication, but was an independently owned production of Essence Communications Partners. It caters to a largely African-American audience and has nothing to do with fitness.

“I didn’t say anything, because I was so taken aback,” Ms. Rhone said. “But then he followed with ‘How about O magazine?’—which I thought was even more interesting, because that’s obviously not a black publication; it just so happens that Oprah is. So I was really kind of confused by the whole thing.”"

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In Frey Fabrication, Publishers Only Care If Mt. Oprah Blows

2006-01-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

By Sheelah Kolhatkar

By the jaded standards of the publishing trade, it shouldn’t have been disturbing to learn that author James Frey may have fudged the truth in his best-selling addiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces.

“For someone to style a book as a memoir and take liberties with strict factual accuracy of the account is not unusual,” said Jonathan Kirsch, an author and publishing attorney. “That’s the world we live in, and publishers tolerate it. They might even encourage it, because it makes the books juicier.”

But the opinion that mattered was Oprah’s.

As the news of Mr. Frey’s apparent fabrications—laid out in a sprawling report on the Smoking Gun Web site Jan. 8—spread, the professionals weren’t the ones who counted."

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The Rolling Stones did make the biggest bang

2006-01-10T21:00:00.000-05:00

Glamorous Mariah Carey may have been queen at the record store in 2005, but she's practically a handmaiden to the wrinkled old Rolling Stones in Calendar's ninth annual Ultimate Top 10, which combines pop performers' album sales and concert revenue.

Carey sold nearly 5 million copies in the U.S. of her career-rejuvenating 'The Emancipation of Mimi' CD, which translates to $65 million in cash register sales, assuming an average of $13 per unit these days.

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But that wasn't enough for her to finish inside our Ultimate Top 10, which adds concert grosses tabulated by Pollstar magazine and album sales monitored by Nielsen SoundScan as a window into which acts pried the most money loose from fans during the year.

Top honors go for the second time to the Rolling Stones, who posted a combined gross of almost $168 million, the vast majority of which came at the concert box office. U2 wasn't far behind with $150 million, and then Kenny Chesney at $109 million, the only other acts to top $100 million. Still, the Stones' performance in 2005 is only fourth on the all-time list. 'N Sync still holds the record: a combined $212.9 million in 2000."

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A curious 'State' of affairs

2006-01-10T20:59:00.000-05:00

After years of entanglement with Judith Miller, the New York Times can celebrate a true journalistic hero in James Risen, the reporter who uncovered the NSA eavesdropping story.

But the Gray Lady's silence on Risen's new book could be a sign of how problematic the new hero could be for the paper.

Risen's 'State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration' arrived in stores Jan. 3.

His former employer, the Los Angeles Times, published a lengthy excerpt the following day. But the New York Times has yet to mention the book, just as it has refused to explain why it held Risen's eavesdropping story for more than a year, publishing it just weeks before it would have lost the scoop to Risen's book.

The book also indicates Iraq had abandoned its nuclear weapons program shortly after the first Gulf War, but that information was ignored by the neocons selling an invasion of Iraq. Those on the selling end of the equation had the ear of Miller, whose W.M.D. stories got most of the headlines when it mattered."

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No expletives deleted

2006-01-10T20:57:00.000-05:00

Despite Howard Stern's pledge to not use profanity, his first few hours on Sirius satellite radio Monday were accompanied by healthy doses of words that would have gotten him in trouble with the FCC on the air a month ago.

In fact Stern, 51, used the F-word in announcing that he and his girlfriend, Beth Ostrosky, aren't married, contrary to some published reports: 'We're very happy, and I don't want to (expletive) it up.'

From 6 to 10 a.m., USA TODAY counted about 170 swear words, though most came from his cast members. Stern castigated one of them, 'Why do you have to use the F-word?'"

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Apple Presents New Macs Using Intel Chips

2006-01-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

"Apple Computer Inc.'s historic shift to Intel microprocessors came months earlier than expected as CEO
Steve Jobs debuted personal computers based on new two-brained chips from the world's largest semiconductor company.

The company's stock shot to a 52-week high as Tuesday's news coincided with word on impressive holiday sales numbers for Apple's hugely popular iPod music players.

The first Macs to deploy Intel Corp.'s Core Duo processors will be the latest iMac desktop, whose circuitry is all built into the slim display, and the all-new MacBook Pro laptop."

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Get out of MySpace, bloggers rage at Murdoch

2006-01-10T02:19:00.000-05:00

Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites.

The 38 million subscribers to MySpace, which News Corp bought for $629m (£355m) last July, discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens.

The intervention by News Corp in the traditionally open-access world of the web - in particular the alteration of personal user profiles - provoked a storm of angry posts in online 'blogs'.

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Belafonte Calls Bush 'Greatest Terrorist'

2006-01-09T20:08:00.000-05:00

The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called
President Bush 'the greatest terrorist in the world' on Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday. Some in the group attended Chavez's television and radio broadcast Sunday.

'No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution,' Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.

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A Million Little Lies

2006-01-09T18:59:00.000-05:00

"Police reports, court records, interviews with law enforcement personnel, and other sources have put the lie to many key sections of Frey's book. The 36-year-old author, these documents and interviews show, wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw 'wanted in three states.'

In additon to these rap sheet creations, Frey also invented a role for himself in a deadly train accident that cost the lives of two female high school students. In what may be his book's most crass flight from reality, Frey remarkably appropriates and manipulates details of the incident so he can falsely portray himself as the tragedy's third victim. It's a cynical and offensive ploy that has left one of the victims' parents bewildered. 'As far as I know, he had nothing to do with the accident,' said the mother of one of the dead girls. 'I figured he was taking license...he's a writer, you know, they don't tell everything that's factual and true.'"

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Current Nabs Celebs, Ups Pod Payments

2006-01-09T18:51:00.000-05:00

"Current TV, the Al Gore/Joel Hyatt-helmed youth-targeted network, has inked deals with some well-known celebrities, filmmakers and authors to instruct its viewer-contributors on journalistic techniques. The network has also increased the fee it pays viewers who contribute digital programming.

As part of the network's 'VC2 Survival Guide,' free online training guidelines for how to submit video content, Sean Penn will introduce tips on journalism and Robert Redford will give advice on storytelling techniques.

Their interviews, along with advice from former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, NPR host Ira Glass, author Dave Eggers, filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke, Berkeley Graduate School Dean Orville Schell, Boinboing.net blog editor Xeni Jardin, and others will explain to wannabe filmmakers which storytelling techniques work best for TV and why. They will be featured in the Current Online Studio section of the network's Web site, co-sponsored by Sony, as well as in segments on the cable network."

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Music Biz Suffers Biggest Loss in Three Years

2006-01-05T02:54:00.000-05:00

By Chris Morris, Reuters

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 3) - Music retailers suffered their steepest sales decline in three years during 2005.

Compared with 2004 -- which, in a tic of the calendar, had a 53-week retail year -- the market for CDs plunged more than 10%. Based on a 52-week year, sales were down nearly 8%.

This crash -- the worst since 2002, which witnessed a plummet of 10.7% -- was all the more dizzying for retailers because the business appeared to be rebounding in 2004, when sales rose a modest but encouraging 3.8%.

Sadly, the writing was on the wall throughout the fourth quarter this year. In what is traditionally the critical period for stores, a parade of new titles experienced immediate and sharp sales spikes. Album sales were buoyed at year's end by some long-running titles, greatest-hits compilations and a new entry in the perennially best-selling 'Now' series."

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"GMA Recovers From ‘Best Season Ever’

2006-01-05T02:49:00.000-05:00

"GMA Recovers From ‘Best Season Ever’

By Rebecca Dana

Early this fall, Ben Sherwood, the executive producer of Good Morning America, gave every member of his staff a little plastic trophy, of a type typically awarded to the World’s Greatest Dads. On the faux-marble base, it read: “MVP GMA’s Best Season Ever 2004-2005.”

Embossed in gold, each tiny talisman was a reward for achieving the highest ratings in the 30-year history of the show. It was also a reminder of what was never quite achieved: a victory.

Winning—which around here means overtaking blood rival Today on NBC, if just for the most fleeting of weeks—is a feat that Good Morning America had not performed since 1995."

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Games R Us

2005-12-29T16:13:00.000-05:00

Games R Us: "By Gersh Kuntzman
Newsweek
Updated: 12:09 p.m. ET Dec. 28, 2005

Dec. 28, 2005 - The first videogame was a rudimentary version of Pong created in 1958 by a government physicist hoping to enliven a boring class trip for kids. Now the videogame industry is so big ($10 to $25 billion in sales this year, depending on whose numbers you believe) and so sophisticated (the U.S. military trains its soldiers on the latest videogames) that it is taking over our culture."

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Maxim crosses cultures

2005-12-29T16:12:00.000-05:00

Maxim crosses cultures: "The new Indian version of Maxim will tone down the sexual content of the UK edition and has small-town readers in its sights

Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi
Thursday December 29, 2005

Today's launch of Maxim in India marks a publishing bombshell in one of the world's most conservative societies. For traditionalists, it will represent yet another step in the country's inexorable slide towards western-style debauchery.

This edition of the men's magazine marks a cultural watershed in two ways. It is the country's first mainstream publication featuring naked or semi-naked women and it announces the arrival of the new Indian woman.

The first edition has Bollywood star Pryianka Chopra on its cover. But this is not the typical coy, sari-clad Bollywood pose, rather a scantily clad woman who looks directly at the camera."

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