(6:11 PM - Additional Information Added at Bottom of Full Post)
This morning, I was listening to one of the many stations across the country currently involved in their semi-annual (or more often) pledge drive. During Morning Edition a pre-recorded piece ran with Korva Coleman “interviewing” Bob Edwards. Of course, it was carefully contrived, ending with Mr. Edwards “begging” people to contribute to their local stations.
They are clearly getting hit. Hard.
Bob maintains withholding support from local stations is a “bad thing,” since NPR needs to survive, and to do so it needs the local stations. He seems terrified that any of this would happen because of him (and this part I can understand, and actually sympathize). He also says that it’s the local stations who will be hurt by this, not NPR.
I have more respect for Edwards than you can imagine…but in this case, he’s just dead wrong.
(more…)
From InfoWorld: Google plans to use its search technology and a large amount of data storage to launch a free e-mail service that lets customers keep about 1G-byte of messages, the Internet search giant announced Wednesday.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/31/HNgooglemail_1.html
Oh, boy…another free email system for the spammers to abuse. Can’t wait.
From News.com: A House of Representatives panel has approved a sweeping new copyright bill that would boost penalties for peer-to-peer piracy and increase federal police powers against Internet copyright infringement.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5182898.html
Good grief, I wish this were an April Fool’s joke. Unfortunately, it’s just yet-another-massive-overreaction by the representatives bought and paid for by the recording and motion picture industries.
From Wired: The Justice Department said Wednesday it has formed an intellectual-property task force to analyze how the department addresses issues like piracy of software, music and movies.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62895,00.html
Great…now not only do the Feds want to jail college kids, they want you and me to pay for it.
