RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP57

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 57 - download now - subscribe now - review us on iTunes!

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Hey. As I mentioned on the blog earlier this week, we're the number three rated podcast on TalkShoe.com right now. Read more about it here. Our new found celebrity status is getting people to write us. Email us with that link to get your letter read on the show!

We had a heck of a time with the show today. TalkShoe burped on us, and we lost the first iteration of the show. The second attempt was much better.

It was a day of light technical stories today, but some very important political stories. In our ongoing coverage of the 'Vonage Crap' saga, a unique little fold emerges:

Court Says Vonage Needs To Throw Away Money Into Wasteful USF Program
The Universal Service Fund (USF) is a well-known joke. It's a hugely wasteful program with almost no oversight. Yet, last year, the FCC decided that VoIP companies needed to pay a huge chunk of their revenue to the USF, despite the fact that doing so would actually slow progress on getting universal service. That's because the money would go from these new, cheaper services into the bank accounts of the big incumbents who would then promise to provide universal service... without much actually happening. Vonage stood up to this decision and sued, claiming the FCC had no say in the matter, but a court has ruled against Vonage, saying that the FCC didn't overstep its bounds. With Verizon breathing down Vonage's neck over patents, the real irony may be that Vonage will now have to hand over money into the USF, that will go right over to Verizon and not into extending service to underserved areas.

And in news that everyone else but me thinks is important:

The Algorithm Is A Disappointment
There's a lot of discussion today about the newly revamped Ask.com, which remains in the unenviable #4 spot in terms of search market share. Basically, the site seems to have sharpened up its interface a little bit, while incorporating things like news and images into its results page. Additionally, the site offers suggested refinement searches, so if you search for "Sopranos", it'll show you a link where you can get results for "Sopranos Merchandise". All of this is fairly inoffensive, but it's really hard to see how this is going to move the dial at all. Despite the company's insistence that it has developed "A Truly New Way to Search", the whole thing looks like a spin on Google's recently announced universal search strategy, which involves incorporating more types of media into its results. The look and feel is a tad different, but so what? Even if the new Ask.com returns "better" results than Google in some instances, there's nothing here that will actually get people to switch. Right now, the company is making a big effort to explain why the new changes are cool, but most people giving the site a try won't have the benefit of someone explaining to them why the site is now so great. As such, they probably won't see it themselves.

Turning to political news, power balances out and changes hands:

Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas Dies at 74
WASHINGTON (AP) - Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas, a three-term conservative Republican who stayed clear of the Washington limelight and political catfights, died Monday. He was 74.

The senator's family issued a statement saying he died Monday evening at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

Just before the 2006 election, Thomas was hospitalized with pneumonia and had to cancel his last campaign stops. He nonetheless won with 70 percent of the vote, monitoring the election from his hospital bed.

Two days after the election, Thomas announced that he had just been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party.

In big big news, the corruption charges finally come down on Jefferson:

U.S. congressman indicted in bribery case

Rep. William Jefferson, D-Louisiana, was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Virginia, Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years, according to a Justice Department official who has seen the document.

Among the charges listed in the indictment, said the official, are racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.(Read the indictment [PDF])

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

Almost two years ago, in August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson's home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed into a box in his freezer

And another Republican throws his hat into the ring:

Gingrich Rips 'Dysfunctional' Administration
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, said Sunday that President George W. Bush is leading an administration that "is not functioning.

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RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP41

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 41 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
• You Are the Guest: Bill Grady turns the microphone on the internet's most interesting people.
  
• Sponsors:
  
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Art Lindsey, still heavily medicated yet still forging forward, returns as co-host in this One-Hour Special before the possible one week hiatus.

We get the show kicked off with Vonage Crap coverage:

Vonage gets a marketing chief
We ordinarily wouldn't make much about a service provider's new chief marketing officer, except the service provider in question is Vonage, which needs new marketing ideas in the same way that a wildfire needs water. Jamie Haenggi joined Vonage in November from ADT, the alarm company. There she was head of marketing and started at Vonage as something called "vice president of company life." In her new job, she'll be in charge of marketing, retail sales, and corporate communications.

For more information about Vonage's new CMO:
- read this article from TMCNet

Related Articles:
Vonage gets its stay, launches astroturf site. Report
Vonage CEO steps down. Report

In more yahoo deadpool news:

Yahoo Shutting Down Auctions - Second Service To DeadPool This Month
Reuters is reporting that Yahoo Auctions will shut down in the U.S. and Canada as of June 16, and new auctions will not be accepted after June 3. Auction sites in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan will stay live.

This is the second service closing announced this month for Yahoo - last week it was confirmed that Yahoo Photos was closing as well.

In the case of Yahoo Photos, users will be directed to Yahoo-owned Flickr as well as other third party services. The closure removed a product conflict and helps focus the company. Auctions is closing for a different reason - it just cannot get traction v. eBay and other competitors. It also shows Yahoo’s commitment to focus on key (growing and profitable) businesses as it streamlines its offerings.

In Tier Two acquisition news:

Breaking: Odeo Acquired By SonicMountain
Details are just coming out, but New York based SonicMountain, a new startup, has acquired Evan Williams’ Odeo. The announcement will come sometime tomorrow. The price is not being disclosed but is in excess of $1 million, and the deal was all cash.

Odeo was publicly put on sale last February. The company was bought back from investors late last year.

Twitter is no longer part of Odeo, so this will not be included in the acquisition. Twitter and Odeo were both wholly owned subsidiaries of Obvious Corp.

Evan Williams will be working with SonicMountain as an advisor for six months or so.

In other news of the idiots, MCI math is replaced by MPAA math:

MPAA Math: 40% Plus 70% Equals?
Ah, the MPAA and its ability to simply make up numbers continues. Last week, we noted that the MPAA was claiming that New York City was where 40% of camcorded movies came from, following earlier claims that 50% came from Canada. However, now that NYC has passed a law with tougher crimes for camcording (note this last passed just last week), apparently, the MPAA can now shift its numerical focus to Canada. Michael Geist points out that along with Warner Brothers' pointless decision to stop promo screenings in Canada, the studio is claiming that 70% of camcorded movies now come from Canada. 70%? Considering they were unwilling to back up earlier reports claiming 30%, 40% and 50% don't expect them to explain the 70% number either. However, we are wondering how the movie industry adds up the 70% coming from Canada with the 40% coming from New York City (not to mention all the camcorded movies from elsewhere) and still come up with 100%. Is there a reason that reporters never bother to ask the MPAA and its studio members to actually back up any of this stuff?

Turning to regular ol' political news, Florida Democrats figure out a way to prevent vote fraud altogether... by ignoring the votes:

For Democrats, Florida Primary May Not Count
be951 writes "Democratic party leaders are seriously considering making the Florida primary 'nonbinding', meaning they could ignore the actual vote by Florida democrats and allow party leaders to decide how Florida's more than 200 delegates are divided up among the candidates. 'I think it's much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding' election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee. This is in response to Florida's move to an earlier presidential preference primary, which scrambled the primary calendar carefully worked out by the two national parties."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In WOOOOOOGG! (WOG) news:

Surprise Arrest For Online Scientology Critic
destinyland writes "An online critic of Scientology was confronted at a routine hearing Tuesday with surprise arrest warrants and thrown into jail. Six years as a fugitive ended in February. (After picketing a Scientology complex in 2000 over the unexplained death of a woman there, he'd been arrested for 'threatening a religion' over a Usenet joke about 'Tom Cruise Missiles.') But 64-year-old Keith Henson had been out on bail, and was even scheduled to address the European Space Agency conference on Space Elevators. He's a co-founder of the Space Colony movement, and one of the original researchers at Texas Instruments. In this interview he discusses both space-based solar energy and his war with the Scientologists — just a few days before he was arrested."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

And the breaking news of the day...

Report: Colorado HS Locked Down; Masked Men Inside
Masked men inside of a Boulder School…pray that this is merely some sort of terrible misunderstanding. None of the domestic mass murderers have worn masks which leads me to wonder if we are not seeing a terrorist attack unfolding. BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - A high school was locked down Thursday amid unconfirmed reports that two [...]

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP40

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 40 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
• You Are the Guest: Bill Grady turns the microphone on the internet's most interesting people.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• AACS - Guaranteed improved credit - http://aacsnet.com/ - Mention RizWords and get $50 off your entry to the program.

James Smith, DC Manager at Layered Technologies joins me today as guest co-host in Art Lindsey's absence. Art is still out on medical leave. In other personal news, we have scheduled a c-section with my wife for Friday, and as such, I will likely put the show on hiatus starting 5/11/2007 for about a week. Stay tuned to Thursday's show for more information on that. James brings us this news item to kick off the show:

Google is at it again – New Data Center in Pryor, OK

Yes, the Internet Giant does not sleep. Google has announced that it will build a 600 (m) million dollar data center on 800 acres at Mid-America Industrial Park in Pryor, Oklahoma.

The center will provide support for Google's numerous Internet services and will hire about 100 people in the coming months.

Officials say employment will eventually reach about 200.
Google is planning to convert a warehouse to open next summer and later add a new building on the site.

James and I strive to point out the flaws in this study, and how popup marketing is different from spyware marketing:

Traffic Fraud Inflates Video Site Popularity
Dotnaught writes "A new study by spyware researcher Ben Edelman finds that spyware-driven traffic inflation is common, particularly at video sites. The study identifies Bolt.com, GrindTV.com, Broadcaster.com, Away.com, RooTV.com, and Diet.com as the beneficiaries of spyware-driven traffic. 'Our measurement systems are inaccurate for the amount of trust we'd like to put into them,' Edelman said. 'So that's the puzzle: How do you build an advertising economy when the number can't be trusted?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Outerspace and inter-planetary colonization has begun!:

Earth Bacteria May Hitch A Ride To The Stars
An anonymous reader writes "Space.com has an article on how old rocket stages are carrying bacteria from Earth to interstellar space. For example, four upper rocket stages were used to boost deep space probes Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10 and New Horizons. The spacecraft were sterilized, but the rocket stages were not, and they now carry the bacteria of the engineers who handled them. If the rocket stages hit a habitable planet, and the bacteria survive the journey, they would be able to reproduce and colonize the planet ... not that there's a high liklihood of that. 'In 40,000 years, this wayward 185-pound (84 kilogram) lump of metal will pass by the star AC+79 3888 at a distance of 1.64 light-years. ... Given the sheer expanse of time that lies ahead of the four discarded rockets, at least one is likely to eventually encounter a planet. But even if that planet's environment is conducive to life, the long dormant bacteria will not just gently plop into some exotic ocean. No soft landing can be expected.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My son, Jacob Li Hopkins, is already ranked number 2 in Google:

Google A Curse To Those With Common Names
or people with embarrassing incidents in their past, Google can be a nightmare, as it's become the closest thing there is to an individual's "permanent record". But people whose pasts are fairly clean can have the opposite problem: their Google permanent record gets lost among everyone else who shares their name. This is particularly hard on the John Smiths of the world, who have to compete with thousands of others to receive a prominent listing on the search engine. This also effects people who change their name due to marriage, as a lifetime of electronic references aren't attached to their new name. Parents have even begun using Google before they name their baby, to make sure that the name they choose doesn't have too much online competition. If that practice were to become more widespread, it may force the Freakonomics guys to revisit their theories on baby naming, and the idea that parents intentionally latch onto popular names associated with elite classes. Instead, the moment a name starts to get even remotely popular (or crowded), parents will start searching for something new.

Of course it's irrational. We all know, there is no spoon:

EFF Files Suit Against 'Paranormalist' Uri Geller
Via The EFF.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit Tuesday against Uri Geller -- the "paranormalist" famous for seemingly bending spoons with his mind -- on behalf of a YouTube critic who was silenced by Geller's baseless copyright claims.

EFF's client, Brian Sapient, belongs to a group called the "Rational Response Squad," which is dedicated to debunking what it calls irrational beliefs. As part of their mission, Sapient and others post videos to YouTube that they say demonstrate this irrationality. One of the videos that Sapient uploaded came from a NOVA program called "Secrets of the Psychics," which challenges the performance techniques of Geller.

More here.

Good for Vonage?

AT&T Dumps VOIP Customers
Proudrooster writes "In the past two weeks AT&T has sent out disconnect letters to VOIP customers in big rude red letters, stating that VOIP service will be suspended in 30 days and permanently disconnected in 60 days. They cited E911 service as the reason. (It is peculiar that AT&T is unable overcome an E911 technical hurdle, since SBC/AT&T is also the local landline company in many areas where VOIP cancellation notices are being received.) Many AT&T VOIP customers have found that they are unable to transfer their phone numbers to a new provider. Further, AT&T is unwilling to set up a forwarding message directing callers to a new phone number for those who are unable to transfer their old numbers. In effect, AT&T has told many long-term VOIP subscribers: 'We are turning off your phone in 30 days, goodbye.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Like we said, you screwed up Obama. Now begins your backpedaling!:

Followup to the Obama Story from the UK Telegraph

Unlike at the 2004 election, each major candidate has an online presence on MySpace, YouTube or Facebook. Mr Obama, 45, has offered freshness and youthful appeal, and is often said to relate to the young better than his rivals.

But bloggers reacted negatively to his team’s move, saying they had betrayed the free-wheeling spirit of the internet.

Daily Kos, a leading grassroots blog for Democrat activists, said alienating “your biggest supporters is generally not a wise thing to do”.

Another blogger wrote on Atrios: “I really don’t understand the tendency to treat volunteers as disposable.”

Mr Obama’s advisors, issuing an explanation online, said: “We’re going to try new things and sometimes it’s going to work and sometimes it’s not going to work.”

James and I expound a bit more on the topic Derrick and I broached yesterday:

Leahy, Others Speak Out Against New ID Standards

Ellen Nakashima writes in The Washington Post:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), citing concerns about Americans' privacy, signaled yesterday that he will push to repeal a provision of a 2005 law aimed at creating new government standards for driver's licenses.

Leahy, who has co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to repeal the provision, spoke out as the debate intensified over the Real ID Act, which requires states to create new tamper-proof driver's licenses in line with rules recently issued by the Department of Homeland Security. States must begin to comply by May 2008 but can request more time. After 2013, people whose IDs do not meet those standards will not be allowed to board planes or enter federal buildings.

A similar Democrat-backed bill to repeal the provision is pending in the House. At least seven states have passed laws or resolutions opposing implementation of Real ID. Fourteen states have legislation pending. By yesterday, the DHS had received more than 12,000 public comments in response to the rules.

More here.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP38

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 38 - download now - subscribe now

Special guest co-host Bill Grady of You are the Guest joins me today.

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
• You Are the Guest: Bill Grady turns the microphone on the internet's most interesting people.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• AACS - Guaranteed improved credit - http://aacsnet.com/ - Mention RizWords and get $50 off your entry to the program.

Back in my BlipMedia days, we did a quote for the Pentagon that was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Needless to say, they're not taking our bid, opting into the good ol' boy's network @ 18 mil, instead:

Pentagon phone system to go VoIP

A major renovation to the Pentagon has taken a VoIP twist. The Department of Defense has awarded General Dynamics an $18.4 million contract to design and deploy a VoIP phone system as part of what's called the Wedge 2-5 stage of the Pentagon's modernization program. The 4 million square-foot project is intended to modernize building systems, increase security and upgrade technology in the world's largest office building. The VoIP contract is meant to provide a building-wide multimedia phone system integrating voice, video and data communications-in both secure and non-secure channels. VoIP not secure? One hopes there will be an unclassified White Paper someday about how the Pentagon made IP telephony more secure than some thought possible.

For more about the Pentagon's coming VoIP phone system:
- read this FCW.com article

In other VoIP news, it's a Vonage article that doesn't talk about Verizon. Of course, that doesn't mean we won't talk about it on the show... :)

Has Comcast passed Vonage?

Has Comcast replaced Vonage as the Number 1 VoIP carrier? Some back-of-the-envelope figuring by Network World thinks it might have happened. Comcast ended the first quarter of this year with 2.4 million VoIP customers--nearly 1.9 million more than it had a year ago and roughly 10 percent of the number of cable customers it serves. Vonage, in the fourth quarter of 2006, reported 2.2 million customers. And given its legal problems, financial drain and marketing distractions, it seems unlikely that Vonage's growth would keep pace with Comcast's explosive gains. We should know Vonage's numbers pretty soon, but bragging rights may well have passed to Comcast.

For more about Comcast's market penetration:

- read this Network World article

In one of the more interesting news from inside the beltway, recently - it's politics AND sex!

DC Escort Services Becomes Latest Scandal
Randall Tobias, Director of US Foreign Assistance and US Agency for International Development Administrator, became the first political casualty this week in a slow cooking scandal over a Washington DC escort service. Tobias abruptly resigned after ABC News contacted him about employing the services. Tobias maintains that he only recieved massages, but that doesn't really matter at this point. His political career is over, and if thousands of pages of phone records provided by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the services' proprietor, pan out, more will follow. In the meantime, news organisactions posessing the list are undecided as to what their next step will be -- now that they have outed the lists's only republican.

Palfrey was indicted on federal racketeering charges in February for allegedly running a $300-an-hour call-girl ring that dates back 13 years. "20/20" will be airing a segment on the scandal this week, allowing Palfrey, who has a checkered legal past, to say the least, another opportunity to mug before the cameras. Following a pattern that fits almost every sex scandal that unfolds in the Swamp, Palfrey is portraying herself to be the victim, putting the spotlight instead of the political class who took advantage of the services she provided.

Of course, there are no innocents in this tawdry saga. Even if no laws were broken, the lack of moral rectitude in our nation's capital should trouble all of us. Founder John Adams may have said it best: "WE have no government aremd with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitutional as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Nice try, I'll pass on that one, though:

Verizon Says It Has A First Amendment Right To Illegally Give Your Call Records To The Government
The nation's biggest telcos are working hard to make the lawsuits against them for passing customer call records and other info to the government as part of its program of warrantless wiretaps disappear. AT&T's argument that it was just following government orders didn't wash with a judge, and now Verizon is claiming that its passing of information to the government is protected by the First Amendment. Yes, you read that correctly: it says the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is unconstitutional, and the information it passed to the government -- in apparent violation of it, and to comply with the sort of warrantless surveillance the ECPA was designed to prevent -- is constitutionally protected free speech. This seems tenuous at best, but it fits with Verizon's MO. The company always tries to whitewash its customer data leaks by filing lawsuits and trying to shift the blame onto pretexters and information brokers, and making the problem appear to be solely these people's activities, rather than its own inability to protect customer data. Likewise in this case, it contends that it's done nothing wrong, and that the ECPA makes the mistake of trying to prevent free speech, rather than putting restrictions on the government's ability to ask for the information. Of course, those restrictions exist (in the form of having to get a warrant), but didn't really work so well here. Verizon's complicity seems pretty obvious and its free-speech claims look like little more than a hail-mary attempt to shirk liability for disclosing the customer information. That may not be necessary, though, if the Bush administration's attempts to get Congress to pass a law giving the telcos immunity from these sorts of lawsuits are successful.

Lay off the movies, bozos:

Canadian Coins Not Nano-Tech Espionage Devices
Necrotica writes "An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year. The odd-looking — but harmless — "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For some reason, we've been following (and rooting for) Sarkozy's quest for French Presidency. Bill weighs in heavy on this issue:

Sarkozy Takes French Presidency
'Conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has won the hotly-contested French presidential election

'The final count gave Mr Sarkozy 53.06%, compared with 46.94% for socialist Segolene Royal, with turnout at 85%.

'Mr Sarkozy, 52, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, takes over from the 74-year-old Jacques Chirac.

'Riot police have fired tear gas at a small group of demonstrators who were protesting in central Paris against Mr Sarkozy's victory.'

From CATO on the same topic:

It spoke volumes that Sarkozy was the only French presidential candidate to visit the United States. On a highly publicized trip to Washington, he was photographed with President Bush. He also gave a strongly pro-American speech. Sarkozy told his audience that, "Friendship is respect, understanding, affection but not submission ... I ask our American friends to let us be free, free to be their friends."

In response, former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius proclaimed that Sarkozy was seeking to replace British Prime Minister Tony Blair as Bush's "poodle." A Royal aide labeled Sarkozy "an American neoconservative with a French passport," a criticism that stuck to him for the campaign's duration.

First, the Bush administration has belatedly concluded that a very public transatlantic dispute has damaged American interests. The White House is now committed to playing nicely with Chirac's successor.

Second, there will be a new American president within 21 months. Circumstance will force the next president, Republican or Democrat, to present a more pragmatic American face to the world.

The White House's next inhabitant will occupy an office diminished in stature by his or her predecessor's diplomatic failures. President Sarkozy will quietly offer to help his ally pick up the pieces.

Any excuse to say the words 'Nappy Headed Hos':

Don Imus to sue CBS for full contract
More than three weeks after CBS Radio and MSNBC unceremoniously dropped his highly-rated morning talk show, "Imus in the Morning", Don Imus is preparing for a legal battle with his former employers.

This from my blog post earlier, brought up some good end of show discussion with Bill and I:

MSNBC's Republican Debate

I watched the debate, and I must say I was impressed with the aptitude that the Republicans handled themselves. I suppose that after years and years of being exposed to Republican ineptitude, its refreshing to be exposed to the flip-side of it.

Here's the most interesting thing to come out of this debate; given the huge field of the early Republican lineup of candidates that prevented Paul from elaborating much more on what makes him so very different from the rest of the pack, and the scant 90 minutes afforded the public to know who they are, Paul did as well as he possibly could going from near last to FIRST place.

This shake-up is very interesting.

BEFORE the Republican "debates":

1. Giuliani 41%
2. McCain 31%
3. Romney 28%
4. Huckabee 14%
5. Thompson 11%
6. Tancredo 10%
7. Brownback 10%
8. Paul 9%
9. Hunter 7%
10. Gilmore 4%

AFTER the Republican "debate" at 9:28am the next morning:

1. Paul 35%
2. Romney 30%
3. Giuliani 25%
4. McCain 20%
5. Huckabee 16%
6. Tancredo 10%
7. Brownback 9%
8. Thompson 9%
9. Hunter 8%
10. Gilmore 7%

Here's where you can watch and judge for yourself:
Part 01 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 02 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 03 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 04 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 05 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 06 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 07 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 08 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 09 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...
Part 10 of 10 of MSNBC's first Republican Presiden...

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP36

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 36 - download now - subscribe now - iTunes subscribe

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We had a lot of news to cover today, and no co-host to slow me down. Make sure you tune in to Monday's show, when I'll be accompanied by Bill Grady of You Are the Guest Podcast. But now... the news! This from our ongoing coverage of the Vonage Crap....:

1. Vonage asks for a new trial
Last issue, I alluded to an upcoming Supreme Court case that might have an impact on the Vonage/Verizon appeal. Sure enough, the court on Monday handed down a ruling in KSR vs. Teleflex, finding that the combination of two commonly known elements into something obvious is not patentable. Vonage has seized on the ruling, asking an appellate court to throw out the verdict against it and order a new trial. Verizon, of course, is opposed. Vonage is already appealing its loss at trial; the appellate court has set a June 25 hearing on that appeal. Vonage wants the appeal to be put on hold pending the results of the new trial. If it loses that second trial, Vonage wants the existing appeals process to resume. Even though Vonage was convicted of infringing three patents, the courts are letting the company operate pretty much as normal while the appeals are being heard. If this gets any more complicated, they'll have to hand out copies of Dickens' Bleak House with the appellate briefs.

For more about the Supreme Court, Vonage, Verizon, and the rest of it:

- read this from Internet News
- check out this DailyTechRag report

I tried out Joost this morning. I wasn't incredibly impressed. I'll give it a fairer shake later this weekend and talk about it again on Monday. Meanwhile, Joost should be available for everyone. Want an invite? Anyone present at Friday's TalkCast will get one!.

Joost (almost) Launches
Updated: It won't be for another few days before anyone can join Joost, but the company has officially announced that it is launching commercially. Starting today, existing beta testers can now invite anyone to join Joost. Beta testers visit the "Invite Friends"

In "should-this-really-be-criminal" news:

Student Arrested for Writing Essay
mcgrew writes "The Chicago Tribune reports that an eighteen year old straight-A High School student was arrested for writing an essay that 'disturbed' his teacher. Even though no threats were made to a specific person, 18 year-old Allen Lee's English teacher convened a panel to discuss the work. As a result of that discussion, the police were called in. 'The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now. Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.'"

No one is really talking about this story, which is amazing considering this is probably the second largest e-currency provider for the American markets:

e-gold® Founder Denies Criminal Charges

In an interview with Kim Zetter of the Wired Blog Network, E-Gold owner Dr. Douglas Jackson stated this morning that the Federal indictments announced by the US Department of Justice last Friday are a "farce".

Associated Content first released the news of the indictments on Saturday in this news story.

Dr. Jackson, E-Gold, and the other owners were charged with:

1. conspiracy to launder monetary instruments,
2. conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business,
3. operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under federal law,
4. money transmission without a license under D.C. law.

According to Jackson, E-Gold is one of the good guys in this crime-fighting saga and its ensuing fiasco. Not only did they cooperate with law enforcement officials regarding suspicious E-Gold accounts, but they also developed software which effectively tracks criminals trying to launder money through E-Gold, and prevents use of the E-Gold system to aid and abet their criminal activities. They were waging their own war against the very things they have been accused of aiding: terrorism, child exploitation, and more.

This is a story that KenRadio has been talking about for a few days. I worked for 5Tribe Marketing as a consulting for more than a year, so I'm more than familiar with these numbers, and have been for a while:

Newspaper circulation continues to fall
Newspaper circulation continued to decline nationwide but many individual publications and a trade group countered with figures showing that the papers' audiences were growing online. Weekday circulation at 745 daily newspapers dropped 2.1% to 45.9 million, and Sunday circulation at 601 newspapers fell 3.1% to 48.1 million, according to the Newspaper Assn. of America. The figures compared the six-month period that ended March 31 with the same period a year earlier. The trade association sought to counter those figures by re- releasing recent research that showed use of newspaper websites increased 5.3%, to 59 million people, in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period a year ago. Newspaper owners are so intent on including the broader view of their total audience that they have helped persuade the organization that tracks newspaper performance — the Audit Bureau of Circulations — to incorporate online usage into its figures next year. The Los Angeles Times was like many of its big-city counterparts in continuing to experience circulation losses. The newspaper's daily circulation fell to an average of 815,723, a 4.2% decline, compared with the same period a year earlier. Its Sunday circulation dropped 4.7% to 1,173,000. The Times attributed much of the decline to the continued scaling back of programs that distributed free papers in schools and at hotels. Executives at the paper said they were encouraged that "individually paid" daily circulation — papers delivered at homes and sold at newsstands — increased fractionally to 779,256. The Times hit its print circulation highs in 1991, with more than 1.2 million copies of the paper sold each weekday and nearly 1.6 million on Sundays. The use of latimes.com increased 15%, to 65 million page views, in January over the year before. "Even as we are rapidly growing our online audience, it's clear that great print journalism still plays a big part in the 24/7 multimedia world our advertisers, readers and users want," Times Publisher David D. Hiller said in a statement. Other papers in Southern California suffered even sharper losses. Daily circulation of the San Diego Union-Tribune slumped 6.6% to 296,000. The Orange County Register fell 5.1% to 285,000, the Riverside Press-Enterprise was off 6.7% to 173,000 and the San Fernando Valley-based Daily News dropped 7.3% to 146,000. One of the biggest declines in the region was experienced by the Santa Barbara News-Press, where owner Wendy McCaw and some of her employees have been feuding. They have accused her of meddling in news decisions. News-Press circulation during the week dropped 9.5% to 38,000.

These are amazing statistics... look for similar numbers in America soon:

45% of Europeans watch TV online
A new study from Motorola has found that an amazing 45% of Europeans now watch television online. — The survey covering the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain found that the French lead Europe in terms of online television consumption …

The sociological backlash against positive Google press continues:

Google's Evil NDA
An anonymous reader writes "Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil" — but they sure have an evil non-disclosure agreement! In order to be considered for employment there, you must sign an agreement that forbids you to 'mention or imply the name of Google' in public ever again. Further, you can't tell anyone you interviewed there, or what they offered you, and you possibly sign away your rights to reverse-engineer any of Google's code, ever. And this NDA never expires. Luckily, someone has posted excerpts from the NDA before he signed it and had to say silent forever." At the bottom of the posting are links to a few other comments on the Web about Google's NDA, including a ValleyWag post that reproduces it in its entirety.

One word: Proxies.

Pandora To Shut Out Non-U.S. Users Thursday Evening

If you live outside of the U.S. and enjoy listening to customized radio stations on Pandora, brace yourself for some bad news. The site will be shutting you out starting Thursday evening. Registered users who access the service from outside the U.S. received a warning email yesterday letting them know that this will be happening.

Pandora operates under Section 114 of the DMCA, which gives them a clear process for paying rights holders in the U.S. There is no international equivalent of the DMCA, and so to operate legally in other countries, Pandora must sign deals with rights holders directly. That means separate deals with labels and publishers for each song, an extremely difficult and time consuming task.

Pandora has always made it clear on the site that it is for U.S. users only, and requires a U.S. zip code for registration. That didn’t stop many international users from registering anyway, using “90210″ or another famous zip code to get access to the service. Now, with IP-based filtering, users will be forced to go through proxy servers or other complicated mechanisms for getting to the music.

I spoke with CTO Tom Conrad this evening about the change. He says Pandora has been working on international rights deals for nearly two years now, and they hope to have enough deals done in the UK and Canada to launch in those countries soon. Other markets will take longer, he says.

The email sent to users is below.

This isn’t the only bad news recently for Pandora. Along with other Internet radio companies, they have also been fighting the RIAA over revisions to the fee structure they must pay for playing music online. The rates they pay are significantly more than satellite providers pay, and terrestrial radio stations pay nothing to play music. Two very brave congressmen, Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL), have proposed legislation that would require Internet radio startups to pay no more than satellite providers, which should allow many Internet radio startups to stay in business. Read more about the legislation on the Pandora blog and SaveNetRadio.

We’ve covered Pandora since their launch in the summer of 2005. Our coverage is here.

In "0wn3d" news:

Internet2 Knocked Out By Homeless Man?

The original purpose of the internet was supposed to be a network that the government could continue to use even after a nuclear attack. The whole point is that it's supposed to figure out ways to route around damage. However, when it came to Internet2, apparently designers didn't pay as much attention to that kind of stability. The news today is that a homeless man in Boston tossed a cigarette on a mattress, setting off a two-alarm fire that happened to knock out the Internet2 connection between New York and Boston. It's true that Internet2 is supposed to be experimenting with different methods of building network infrastructure, but you would think that redundancy would have been considered a feature worth keeping.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP 28

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 28 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
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In our ongoing coverage of the Vonage Crap stuff:

Verizon prior art found on Usenet
The quest for prior art in the Verizon/Vonage patent fight continues. Last week, I wrote about formal discussions regarding VoIP technology from 1996 and 1997. But the Internet never forgets, and someone has found a 1995 Usenet post that pretty much describes the interconnection and control of voice calls bridged between an IP network and the PSTN. It was posted on the TELECOM Digest, a highly respected moderated newsgroup; if you were in telecom in the mid-90s, you were either reading that newsgroup or you were faking it. Vonage's trial, as discussed previously, never really delved into the matter of the Verizon patent's validity. It's not clear right now where or how that discussion will take place.

For more about prior art affecting the Verizon patents:
- see the newsgroup posting from TELECOM Digest

The war is LOST! We're doomed. DOOOOMED!:

The Senate majority leader Harry Reid drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost. He did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."

In a large segment of the show in which we covered Advertising and Dying Old Media:

Clear Channel Continues To Cut Away At Ad Spots
A couple of years ago, Clear Channel announced that it would limit the number of commercials its stations aired in a bid to stay competitive with other modes of listening to music, like satellite radio and iPods (yes, they do compete). Clear Channel's experiment, however didn't have the brightest results as fewer commercials translated to lower profits, despite efforts to charge more on a per ad basis. Still, even as the company was reporting lower revenue, it promised to maintain its limited number of ads. Now it looks to be going further in this direction, as one of its stations in Dallas will go completely commercial free. Instead of running 30 second spots, the station will make money by having companies sponsor blocks of time, with the promise that their product will be talked about in some way. Again, the station will probably see a revenue hit, but what choice does it have? As long as competition continues to take its toll on Clear Channel's bottom line, it might as well take an aggressive, proactive stance. It's also likely that the company will be criticized for not drawing a bright line between content and advertising, since the DJs will be talking about the sponsor company. But the company will be clear that the company is a sponsor of the programming, which should ameliorate these concerns. Furthermore, there's always been a blurry line separating advertising and content, as the best advertising is that which makes for good content in its own right. As long as the company is being forthright, this should be a worthwhile experiment.

And this from Mark Cuban:

Ripoff Commercials = Stupid TV Stations and Networks

Apr 22nd 2007 12:05PM

Its hard to turn on the TV today and not see commercials for some of the biggest ripoff schemes in existence. From Get Rich Quick schemes around the internet, around trading stocks, around real estate and anything else scam artists can think of, to get fit, get trim, get pretty, get studly, get this, that and the other, rip off commercials are in full force these days.

Why are they on TV ?

There are few rules in business that are simpler and easier to understand than "DONT RIP OFF YOUR CUSTOMERS". Why is it that TV stations and networks and I need to include radio as well, have no problem running commercials that are blatant hustles of one sort or another ?

If you ever need an example of short term thinking at the expense of long term value, this is it.

Here we are at a point in time when the value of the traditional 30 second ad is being questioned and reconsidered because of industry wide fears that consumers will just TIVO right past them, yet the same industry places and runs commercials with a guy in a dollar suit sign running around selling a book that is questionable at best on how to get money from the government. Why ?

How stupid can you be to run these commercials ? Do you not realize that its not a commercial for the product, its a commercial to reduce the value of the brand of your station or network ?

HDNet wont run informercials or any ripoff commercials. We don't need or want their money and I would rather go without commercials than run them. My viewers are my customers. For some reason that is a strange concept to stations and networks these days. They would rather squeek out a commission on herbal enhancement pills and end up with a poorer, upset viewer than run a show without commercial breaks. Thats ridiculous. Its a brand killer

How about this for a concept: If you havent sold a commercial, dont run a commercial. The lack of a spot will hurt your bottom line far less than running a spot to ripoff your customers

And in somehow, less interesting news:

Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 2
Thunderbird version 2.0 has been released today. As MacWorld reports, Thunderbird 2 adds message tagging, improved searching, as well as enhanced spam and phishing protection.

And finally, in the death of Vista News:

Dell Bringing Back Windows XP For An Encore
Last year, when Microsoft announced that Vista would be delayed for the umpteenth time, there was some fear that by releasing it after Christmas, it would result in a significant lull in computer sales. But this thinking assumed that people were actually enthusiastic about Vista and wouldn't want to buy an older version of Windows with a new one coming out soon. In retrospect, that assumption seems to have been quite misplaced. Not only is Vista not leading to higher computer sales, but there's a significant subset of consumers that actually would prefer to buy an older version of Windows. This demand has prompted Dell to start selling a few PC models preloaded with Windows XP, which the company had discontinued earlier this year. This can't please Microsoft, which would like to concentrate, as much as possible, on supporting its new operating system. But with so many complaints about the resource demands of the operating system, and the amount of crapware that it comes bundled with, it's no surprise that many people are happy to go with the old system.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech, EP24

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 24 - download now - subscribe now

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In the-most-hilarious-thing-you'll-hear-about-Imus news, Pravda in russia COMPLETELY gets it wrong:

American radio icon Don Imus disgraced, fired after threat to reveal 9/11 secrets

In a clear sign of its intent to reign in dissident American media personalities, and their growing influence in American culture, US War Leaders this past week launched an unprecedented attack upon one of their most politically 'connected', and legendary, radio hosts named Don Imus after his threats to release information relating to the September 11, 2001 attacks upon that country.

According to European reports of the events surrounding Don Imus that have gripped the United States this past week, it was during an interview with another American media personality, Tim Russert, who is the host of a television programme frequently used by US War Leaders, wherein while decrying the state of care being given to American War wounded stated, "So those bastards want to keep these boys [in reference to US Soldiers] secret? Let's see how they like it if I start talking about their [in reference to US War Leaders] secrets, starting with 9/11."

Unable to attack such a powerful media figure as Don Imus, directly, the US War Leaders, and as we have seen many times before, resorted to a massive media attack against him using as the reason a racial slur against a US woman's basketball team, but which has been pointed out by other media outlets was not by any means a rare occurrence for the legendary radio icon to make.

In other getting it wrong news, this from Virginia regarding the tragic VATech incident:

Xeni Jardin: Large-scale incidents of gun violence like yesterday's mass shooting at Virginia Tech University are inevitably followed by gun law debate.

Today, some around the 'net are pointing to relatively relaxed gun laws in Virginia as a contributing factor to the killings. Virginia allows effectively unlimited purchase of assault weapons for anyone over 18 who passes a background check; it's ok to sell rifles and shotguns to children over 12, and a legal loophole makes it okay to buy second-hand guns at gun shows with no waiting period or background check.

And, in other left wing propaganda, we ask "Are we the only ones seeing another UN Money Making Boondoggle on the horizon?":

Global Warming An Issue For UN Security Council
'On the eve of the first United Nations Security Council debate on global warming, the UK foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, warned US businesses to invest in carbon-free technology or lose out to Europeans.

'The theme of the open debate, a UK initiative, is energy, security and climate. The UK currently holds the Security Council presidency.

'"Clean-tech is going to be a massive market" and the largest economic opportunity of the century, Beckett said on Monday to business leaders in New York, US.' (New Scientist article).

Turning to Tech News, in our ongoing coverage of the Vonage Crap:

Could Vonage Sprint to an Exit? (Light Reading)
Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG - message board) is in talks with Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S - message board) about a way to resolve that carrier's patent lawsuit against the VOIP provider, Light Reading has learned. And one source says a Sprint buyout of Vonage is on the table.

And two stories re-visited:

More Stories Of Police Handing Over Xboxes To Stop Crime
First it was Mexico City police offering Xboxes to people who agreed to hand over guns, and now Engadget notes that police in North Carolina are offering gaming consoles to anyone providing info on a local graffiti spree. Of course, in this case, the police are offering a choice between an Xbox, a PS3, a Nintendo Wii or... they'll just hand over $500 in cash ($1000 if you're an adult). It's not clear why adult snitches get more money than the kids, but that's how it works apparently. While it may seem silly to offer a choice between cash or a video game, it might not be that crazy an idea. If it were just a cash reward, it wouldn't get nearly the same attention as offering a gaming console -- even if (depending on the console) it may be a better deal to take the cash. If the graffiti artist were clever, he should start changing his graffiti to reflect the bounty -- perhaps suggesting which prize any informant should take.

Attention Startups: Google Uninterested In Acquiring Your Eyeballs
Despite the return of the IPO market, the ultimate goal for many of today's startups is still to be acquired by one of the large tech or media firms. While Google has made a few really high-profile acquisitions, the company has also made a number of smaller purchases that pretty much fly under everyone's radar. Speaking to a group of VCs, one of the company's top executives involved in making acquisitions said that the company is no longer interested in companies that have plenty of users, but little concept of how to monetize them. Instead, it wants companies with a clear business model that will lead to revenue growth. This makes sense since the company certainly isn't starving for traffic. What's clear is that the company is serious about broadening its offerings, so that it's not so dependent on advertising for its revenue. Eric Schmidt even admitted as such in a recent interview with Wired, as he touted the company's emerging paid software business. The attitude might also be a reflection of the company's ongoing headaches associated with YouTube. While it's still too early to put a verdict on that acquisition, the company may be regretting having spent so much money with so little clarity as to how it would recoup its investment.

/rizzn