Mike's Minutiae

• "Drought Kills SpongeBob SquarePants; Beloved by children, now resembles own trading card"
  
  
• "Surprise Election Day Victory! Write-in bid 'worked after all,' hails stunned President-Elect Fred Grandy"
  
  
• "Another Ex-Seinfeld Star Cast in New Sitcom"
  
  
• "Poodle Taught to Speak English; Won't shut up"
  
  
• "Indicted Former Veep Cheney Granted Saudi Asylum"
  
  
• "NHL Resolves Player Contract Issues; Strike averted, next season will happen"
  
  
• "Rivers Mom & Daughter Finally Allowed Inside Oscars"
  
  

• Omaha Beach & the American Military Cemetery
  
• St. Mere Eglise & Utah Beach
  
• Pointe-du-Hoc
  

It is important to distinguish between "fair use" and "free access." It is not a defense to copyright infringement to illegally gain access to a work, whatever the motivation. You cannot steal a CD from a record store in order to make a fair use copy of a portion of it. You cannot break into a library to make fair use of a book. HR 107 would blur this distinction and allow the use of devices to circumvent controls that regulate original access to a copyrighted work.

On April 5, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp) and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan began airing their programs with a special transmission signal that enables only a single, nonrecordable copy of the program to be made.

The move has made it necessary for viewers to insert a special card into their digital TV sets to watch or record digital content.

A San Francisco gallery owner bears a painful reminder of the nation's unresolved anguish over the incidents at the Abu Ghraib prison — a black eye delivered by an unknown assailant who apparently objected to a painting that depicts U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners.

In Los Angeles it was exactly a week after a major earthquake that NORAD had inadvertently issued a real alert. The person on duty at NORAD had grabbed the wrong punched tape. At the time I was EIC at KFAC and KFAC-FM. One of the staff announcers, Bill Carlson called me at home just after 7 AM and asked what to do. Bill knew but was being cautious. I tuned around on both AM and FM and found that there were no stations giving "News or Information". Since we were supposed to tell our listeners to tune around for stations giving news and information I chose not to go off the air until someone was giving news and information. I continued to tune around while Bill stayed on the phone with me. We were prepared to follow the rules and read the message and go off the air immediately if only someone, anyone would give any news and or information. Shortly afterwards the alert was cancelled and a statement that it had been sent in error was issued.

• The IMDB gives a rundown of who's playing who.
  
• Cinescape has scoops and spoilers.
  
• The actor playing Arthur Dent, Martin Freeman, has a HHG section on his own website.
  

British and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a United Nations resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction.

DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth defects in children.

Hell, I didn't even know about DU until two years ago. You know how I found out about it? I read an article in Rolling Stone magazine. I just started inquiring about it, and I said "Holy s---!"

~~Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey

Engineers brought the two central ends of the Millau road viaduct in southwest France together, completing the span of the highest bridge in the world.

The road surface is 270 metres above ground, a world record, and the total structure, with suspension cables added will be 343 metres (1,132 feet) above ground at its highest point or 23 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower.

Any promotional/pre-release CDs that you receive are supplied in the strictest confidence. They are supplied on the condition that they may not be sold, altered, transferred or copied in any way (including, without limitation, by CD burning or uploading to the internet). You will be held liable and responsible for any unauthorized use of the relevant recordings (such supply itself being a breach of these terms). Accordingly you are responsible for ensuring that pre-release CDs do not pass into the possession of any third parties.

Almost half of a $273,000 grant awarded in 2002 to fight the Goth culture in Blue Springs has been returned because of a lack of interest — and the absence of a real problem.

Blue Springs received the grant two years ago from the Youth Outreach Unit, money the city and U.S. Rep. Sam Graves trumpeted proudly as a way to fight a perceived Goth problem.

Assistant City Administrator Eric Johnson...said the program is being implemented because there have been some trends in teen behavior which brought concern to YOU.

"What we have noticed is we're seeing some trends and criminal activity that is just alarming," Johnson said.

Johnson said there has been significant increases in uses of the drug ecstasy in this "Gothic" group. He also cited an increase in violence in schools associated with the culture. Another concern YOU has is an increase in depression leading to suicide among members.

Johnson also said self-mutilation is a problem.

Climatologist David Battisti...chuckled. "It's so absurd, I don't think anybody will take it seriously."

"We all agree the movie is fictional, but it opens the door to talk about the serious subject of climate change and how it's already affecting us," said Seattle organizer Lisa Maschmeier.

"We're trying to let people know — in a tongue-in-cheek way — that what the environmental left is pursuing is very dangerous from a job and economics perspective," said Karen Kerrigan, co-chair of the United for Jobs Coalition. The group is running a newspaper ad called "The Day After Kyoto" that parodies the movie with a picture of an unemployment line and a litany of economic losses that pollution controls could trigger.

Former US President Richard Nixon was too drunk to answer the phone when Britain's prime minister rang him at the height of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, according to newly-released records.

By the time [Kennedy] was president, he was on ten, 12 medications a day. He was on antispasmodics for his bowel, paregoric, lamodal transatine [ph], he was on muscle relaxants, Phenobarbital, Librium, Meprobomate, he was on pain medications, Codeine, Demerol, Methadone, he was on oral cortisone; he was on injected cortisone, he was on testosterone, he was on Nembutal for sleep. And on top of that he was getting injected sometimes six times a day, six places on his back, by the White House physician, with Novocain, Procaine, just to enable him to face the day.

So-called "sample" ringtones, the latest stereophonic tones pulled from actual studio recordings...carry a price tag of as much as four times higher than the typical Internet download price in Western Europe -- a price gap that could prematurely stifle a promising ringtone business, Informa said.

Record labels are demanding mobile operators and other ringtone resellers pay a royalty rate equivalent to between 25 percent and 55 percent of the total retail price for a "sample" ringtone, Informa said.

New software that lets anyone create unique cellular phone rings for free has some record labels worried it will kill the cash cow that is the ringtone.

The lone Jeff Buckley studio album released in his lifetime will be reissued in a remastered, expanded edition this summer, Billboard.com can reveal. Due Aug. 23 via Columbia, "Grace: Legacy Edition" features the original 1994 album, a 13-track disc of rarities and a DVD featuring four music videos, studio footage and live performances.

The Bush administration has "openly eroded human rights" to win the war on terrorism and sparked a backlash that has made the world more dangerous, Amnesty International charged yesterday.

"As a strategy, the war on terror is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle," Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Khan, asserted in releasing the human rights group's annual report. She condemned militants unequivocally but said governments are "losing their moral compass."

"Sacrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using preemptive military force where and when it chooses have neither increased security nor ensured liberty," Kahn said of the United States.

Scores of data-mining projects that collect and analyze U.S. citizens' personal information are in operation at dozens of federal agencies, the GAO found. Many of the nearly 200 projects planned or already under way rely on data purchased from the commercial sector.

Civil rights advocates have raised concerns that the government's use of commercial data—rather than data it collects itself—allows agencies to dodge laws protecting citizens' privacy.

In one of the most prominent corporate scandals in recent U.S. history, six former Rite Aid officials faced charges for inflating profits and reaping rich rewards through executive compensation schemes during the late 1990s. The company was forced to restate $1.6 billion in profits in 2000.

Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) on Friday fired a young staffer for "unacceptable use of Senate computers" after she posted her sex diaries on the Internet and raised a hubbub of speculation last week: Who is this wicked woman that calls herself "Washingtonienne"? Was she really bedding six different men or making it all up? And who is the married, high-level federal employee she claims paid her $400 for a lunch-hour tryst?

NPR's move points to the limitations of Google and Yahoo at a time when broadband Internet connections are becoming more popular among consumers, fostering new demand for multimedia content. Publishers are increasingly adding exclusive audio and video content for online access; educators are streaming courses online; broadcasters are bringing vast archives online in digital form; and small-time publishers are finding it cheaper and cheaper to create, produce and host multimedia on the Web. Yet you wouldn't find any of it on the primary search engines.

"Our site is primarily full of rich audio, and we want people to find it when it's relevant," Thomas said.

A group of young Icelandic filmmakers collectively known as Lortur are releasing a full-feature documentary on fellow Icelandic natives Sigur Rós. The filmmakers followed the experimental band on their summer 2003 tour and captured concert footage as well as the band’s offstage shenanigans. The film, which is slated for release this fall, will also feature an original soundtrack provided by Sigur Rós.

Not only is the sweat of the hippo a fetching shade of red that gradually turns to brown, it also acts as a sunscreen and has antibiotic properties, according to Japanese scientists writing in Nature science journal.

The news came via a post on the band's official Web site, in which Anastasio explained the reasons behind the decision.

"Last Friday night, I got together with Mike [Gordon, bassist], Page [McConnell, keyboardist] and Fish [Jon Fishman, drummer] to talk openly about the strong feelings I've been having that Phish has run its course and that we should end it now while it's still on a high note," Anastasio said.

New Zealand siblings Tim and Neil Finn, formerly of Split Enz and Crowded House, will release their second album under the Finn Brothers moniker in late August.

Patients may want their doctors to look professional and tidy, but a new study says neckties worn by medical practitioners may actually harbour disease.

Researchers at a New York hospital say nearly half the neckties worn by medical workers are contaminated with bacteria that could pose health risks to patients.

As the Internet becomes ubiquitous, Shoshkele™ will revolutionize the industry according to the principles of successful marketing and brand building, reaching the right target, at the right time with the right message.

Cannot cover or fly over the Yahoo! logo ever.

Cannot cover the CBS SportsLine.com logo, global navigation, or Scores At A Glance scoring box.

Freeform ads should be designed to come in above the fold but not cover the chicagotribune.com logo

I'm still working on my 80's collection, and my Modern Rock B.N. (Before Nirvana). You said it best: "That's when Modern Rock wasn't afraid to have a good beat." Problem is, I'm not sure where to start. Do you have any FM 106.3 playlists from way back when? I'm really interested in the one hit wonders: Slow Bongo Floyd, Merchants of Venus, The Shamen, and so on. I even like the no hit wonders.

The hawkish master of such million-selling thrillers as "Patriot Games" and "The Hunt for Red October" now finds himself adding to the criticism of the Iraq war.

Helen Lovejoy: You've got to lead our protest against this abomination!
Marge Simpson: Mm, but that's Michelangelo's David. It's a masterpiece.
Helen Lovejoy: It's filth! It graphically portrays parts of the human body, which, practical as they may be, are evil.
Marge Simpson: But I like that statue.
Helen Lovejoy: [gasp] I told you she was soft on full frontal nudity!

Last week in New York Mr. Eisner told friends that Harvey Weinstein had made the movie despite his objections a year ago and had hidden the $6 million budget in loan financing documentation.

It helps that Jones knows many of the artists he spins, and if he hasn't met them, odds are good that he's stolen their equipment. A drug abuser for years and a kleptomaniac for far longer, he routinely heisted stuff found in studios and then hawked it for heroin.

• Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rocky Bleier: $10k-$15k
  
• Baseball Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench: >$20k
  
• Wacky doctor Patch Adams: $20k-30k
  
• Blind Mt. Everest climber Erik Weihenmayer: $20k-30k
  
• Former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly: $45k-$60k
  
• Erik Weinhenmayer's Mt. Everest guide Jeff Evans: <$5k

The assignment, expected to last three years, will allow Greenwood to use the BBC's musical resources, including the BBC Concert Orchestra. His manager, Bryce Edge, said Tuesday the appointment will allow him to "learn how an orchestra works."

• Think Floyd (UK) self-described: "The ultimate Pink Floyd tribute"
  
• Several Species (Baltimore) self-described: "The ultimate Pink Floyd tribute"
  
• Pink Voyd (Boston) self-described: "New England's ultimate Pink Floyd tribute band"
  
• The Machine (New York City) self-described: "America's premier Pink Floyd tribute band"
  
• Pink Fraud (UK) self-described: "The only truly authentic Pink Floyd show"
  
• Mac Floyd (Scotland) self-described: "The most accurate Pink Floyd tribute band in the world" [bonus points for localization of the concept]
  
• Wish You Were Here (Cleveland) self-described: "The American Pink Floyd show; 8 year's [sic] strong & still the best!"
  
• The Final Cut (Germany) self-described: "Germany's premier Floyd/Waters tribute band" [point deduction for German language website using scary crossed-hammer logo from The Wall]
  
• The Wall (New Jersey) self-described: "The Pink Floyd tribute band for the new millennium" [point deduction for negative-sounding website name: "thewallzzz.com"]
  
• Dark Side of the Wall (UK) self-described: "A terrific spectacle for all ages" [bonus fandom points: features a guitarist named John Wall; two band members force their respective sons to participate]

Reports that Sean Combs hasn't embarrassed himself nearly as much as Broadway insiders have been predicting are downright lies.

"People express themselves in many ways; through their music, through the way they dress, and also through the fragrance they choose, so deciding to make a fragrance was very natural for me," the hip-hopster said Friday in a statement.

Aren't I cheerful?

The gourmet coffees that Canadians seek out for their taste and purchase in dizzying quantities, contain whopping amounts of caffeine, according to research commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV News.

In fact, a 20-ounce jumbo cup of house blend at Starbucks or Second Cup contains almost 400 milligrams of caffeine — the upper limit of what Health Canada says an adult can consume healthily in a day.

With the increasing number of mandates to test student writing, "there's a certain inevitability to computerized essay grading," said Stan Jones, Indiana's commissioner of higher education. Indiana's computerized essay scoring, he said, will reduce by half the cost of administering a pencil-and-paper test and will free teachers from distributing, collecting and, above all, grading thousands of test booklets.

Kathryn L. Allison, the English department chairwoman at North Central High School nearby, doubts that the computer can accurately assess the quality of grammatically correct and well-structured student essays that lack substance or are wrong on the facts. "Are kids going to be rewarded for having pedestrian-type answers?" she asked.

• Samite, the Uganda-born singer and traditional flute player who not only writes beautiful and delicate music, but performs with an unexpected fun and panache (and has surprisingly standup comic-esque stage patter)
  
• Jamie Cullum, a U.K. vocal-jazz pianist/singer who runs through versions of "The Wind Cries Mary" and Jeff Buckley's "Lover, You Should've Come Over" with tremendous energy like a Harry Connick, Jr. crossed with Jerry Lee Lewis
  
• Paul Westerberg, who was the talk of the convention for reasons I will post separately
  
• Zero 7, who came from England complete with their six-person band and four rotating vocalists
  
• Catie Curtis, who performed in sort of a songwriter's circle with Mindy Smith (great voice but many problems tuning her guitar) and Garrison Starr (who always sounds better live and acoustic than on her electric albums)
  
• Steve Forbert, who did a typically great job making the songs from his latest album come to life
  
• Patty Griffin, who did a shortened version of the same sat she did in Pittsburgh last Wednesday night
  
• The Subdudes, who were in great voice
  

We had done one television show and had used Dave Grohl from Nirvana. And Dave came close to joining the band. Kurt Cobain had just died. And I really discussed Dave joining the band. But Dave had his own career going. He had just done his Foo Fighters album. So it clearly wasn't going to work.

Oasis are to take their fascination with The Beatles a step further by using Zak Starkey, the son of Ringo Starr, as their drummer at the Glastonbury Festival this summer.

Chuck, getting back to this, there are a lot of people are saying to, like I saw the Senators and some of the Representatives who mostly were the Democrats saying, "Well, why didn't we see these photos earlier?" Well, we have a thing called the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It's the military legal system. Now, Chuck, if you have an ongoing investigation out here, and, you know, these alleged abuse victims--or the alleged perpetrators of the abuse they have rights, too, under the UCMJ. And so, Rumsfeld, if he had rushed out here for political purposes and said, "Hey, we're hanging these guys out to dry," then he could have been accused of circumventing a legitimate investigation and obstructing of justice. See, justice goes two ways, the accused as well as the victim. And if you obstruct justice, then you can be held to account.

The egg industry should stop advertising its products as humane as long as it continues such practices as clipping hens' beaks and depriving birds of food and water, according to a ruling issued Monday by the Better Business Bureau.

It was the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April. Don Emilio Fulci described by an FBI tipster as a reclusive but evil millionaire, had formed a terrorist group that was planning chemical attacks against London and Washington, D.C. That day even FBI director Robert Mueller was briefed on the Fulci matter.

Gamers take on the roll [sic] of Jack Wade, once the number one Headhunter (a special kind of bounty hunter) in the country, who wakes up in a lab and escapes his captors only to slip into a coma in the back alley. Waking up with no memory of what happened to him, Jack finds a woman named Angela Stern--the daughter of a murdered man who happened to have been Chief of the Anti-Crime Network (ACN). Angela hires Jack to find her father’s killer who she suspects is a crime lord named Don Fulci. ~~from review of game title Headhunter

The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before. Historically, the nation’s copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the Fair Use rights of the users of copyrighted material.... The re-introduced legislation will assure that consumers who purchase digital media can enjoy a broad range of uses of the media for their own convenience in a way which does not infringe the copyright in the work.

While Smarty Jones stirred fans Saturday in his first public gallop since winning the Kentucky Derby, the colt's rider had little to say about his failure to disclose his criminal record on a license application. [...] The jockey pleaded guilty to assault three years ago but didn't disclose the information when applying for a license to ride at Churchill Downs.

Mr. Spurlock, a fit, active New Yorker, happily set out to ruin his health, and succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. There was some weight gain — 18 pounds by the end of the experiment — and also mood swings, loss of sex drive and nearly catastrophic liver damage. His general practitioner, Daryl Isaacs, likens Mr. Spurlock's all-Mac diet to the terminal alcoholic binge undertaken by Nicolas Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas and worries that his patient may succumb to liver failure before the 30 days are up.

Amateur war photography is as almost as old as photography itself. During World War I, the army would execute soldiers who took photographs, Howe said.

While that step is obviously extreme by today’s standards, perhaps the military, eager to manage public perceptions, might begin confiscating cameras of soldiers and contractors, Jenkins said.

The shifty villian Michael Eisner twirls his waxed moustache while laughing maniacally. He ties down the helpless artist Moore onto a crude raft, and kicks it away from shore. Moore's pitiable cries of "Shame! Shame!" slowly recede into the gathering roar of the dangerous river current, increasing speed as it heads towards the monstrous waterfall slightly downstream. Eisner dry-washes his hands in glee.

But the white knight Harvey Weinstein, resplendent in his shining armor astride his trusty steed Miramax, suddenly appears and tries to pitch Moore a hempen rope to pull him to safety.

Eisner, his head-rolling cackles suddenly interrupted by this undermining of his deviltry, bleats out a "Drat you, Weinstein!" and dashes toward the gleaming knight. Eisner smacks Weinstein with a mighty wallop of a rolled-up distribution contract, and nearly knocks the heroic would-be savior off his snorting horse.

As the scuffle continues on the riverbank, the poor artist Moore hurtles faster and faster downriver. Through the increasing mist kicked up by the nearing waterfall, one can barely even see the plane tickets for Cannes clutched in the director's hand.

Sony officials were extremely unhappy with the huge amount of negative publicity it received.

"I thought that was a great promotion," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said in Oakland. "After talking about it the last 24 hours, we're still going through with it. We just want to keep the focus on the field."

"We don't want to do anything that takes away from a fan's enjoyment of the game," said Geoffrey Ammer, president of Worldwide Marketing for Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (a subsidiary of Sony).

The rest of the promotion will go forward. The Spider-Man logo will adorn the on-deck circle. Ballparks will feature in-club signage touting the film, teams will feature promotional giveaways tied into "Spider-Man 2" and highlights from the movie will run on scoreboards.