While Our Newsreaders Drooled Over Pictures Of Call Girls...

...the Bush Pentagon moved to suppress a study Bush doesn't like: The Pentagon on Wednesday canceled plans for broad public release of a study that found no pre-Iraq war link between late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the al Qaida terrorist network.Suppressing information it doesn't like is a hallmark of the Bush family. Suppressing information may help folks from looking at the 150 car pile up that they caused, but it does nothing to change the fact that they caused it. The US went to war in Iraq under false pretenses, moving the goal posts after the fact and even changing the game entirely. This isn't a grin and bear it type of situation, you have people who are still justifying the invasion of Iraq and the disposition of Sadam due to a threat that was never there. The rumors of WMD were spread by Sadam himself to scare off Iran from invading. We're living through some of the darkest days in American History and so many people refuse to acknowledge or admit it.

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Reznor's one-week take for 'Ghosts': $1.6 million

A week after releasing his four-volume instrumental work “Ghosts I-IV” through his Web site, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is reporting that he amassed more than $1.6 million in orders and downloads.Bought it, downloaded it, love it! This is how music distribution should be, only way Record companies are going to notice is when their bottom line is hurt. Writing has been on the wall for years now folks, and record companies don't get it. Won't be sorry to see them go.

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Athletic Scholarships: Expectations Lose to Reality

All those weekends of traveling to games, spending extra for the camps, and cultivating a child's athletic prowess all pays off when they get that college scholarship right? Turns out most athletes and their parents are not prepared for the reality of college scholarships these days.

NY Times Article

NIN Confirms Uploads to Public and Private Torrent Sites

The acceptability of P2P took another big step forward over the weekend, as accounts claiming to be ‘the official profile for NIN’ appeared on a number of torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay and the private trackers What.cd and Waffles.fm. NIN has now confirmed that these accounts indeed belong to the band.And the great experiment continues. I have to give Trent & Company a lot of respect for bucking the trend and trailblazing for other artist just to show it can be done. I should point out that Radiohead is deserving of the same accolades for their Rainbows album. Small time and indie artist have had to rely on any way possible to get their music out there and heard, often having to stray from their original vision just to obtain success. Record companies have held all the power and artist have to work long and hard before they start to get any real control. By the time they reach this point, they have either 1) made enough money to fade away to obscurity if they wish or 2) have no desire to rock the boat that brought them to where they are. Trent is one that has made it to that upper level, and could have easily turned a blind eye to what the Record Companies were doing and cash his check. But Trent actually cares for his fans, and gets pissed of if they are being taken advantage of. Case in point, when touring in another country for one of NIN's recent albums, Trent stopped by a local record store. In that store he found the album selling for the equivalent of $20-25. Enraged, Trent asked why his fans were being charged so much to a record executive, to which he basically was told because we can. The executive went on to say that NiN was very popular in that country, and the fan's would pay a premium just to get a hold of the latest content. To be clear, this was not a special edition, or have additional content. This was the exact same disk that any US fan could find at their record company, but fans in this country had to pay close to double the cost. This was one of the many steps that lead Trent to break off his relationship with the Record Industry in its current form. To sum it up, Trent just gets it. By no means does he have it figured all out, but he has seen the writing on the wall. With a large percentage of today's teens abandoning CDs and physical media all together, a new market place has to be developed. Since the Recording Industry has already missed the boat on that one, someone has to take the time to figure it out. (Not only have they missed the boat, but they sent a battleship named the RIAA after it to sink and destroy it). Its going to take a lot of work and innovative ideas to set up this new digital market place. Concessions have to be made by both sides. DRM has to be removed, destroyed, and never looked at again. But by the same token, fans and individuals can no longer look at the internet as a candy shop built for free binges on all you can eat for free. Artists put a ton of hard work into what they put out there, and yes despite their best efforts, some of it is utter crap. But those who do put out quality work should be supported so that they can continue to do so. I've very excited by what Trent is doing here, and I think we are on the verge of a new relationship between fans and artists, and the death of the recording industry as we know it. And if they can't see the writing on the wall, they will be buried in the same casket that they built.

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Best video explaining net neutrality ever

Individuals invented the internet yet now corporations claim they own own it - they claim it's their private property. If that's true then you don't have free speech online. I disagree - I think free speech in "free speech zones" isn't free: it's *dependent* on having a public place to be heard - meaning public property like the internet.



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New Nine Inch Nails record available for download RIGHT NOW!

NIN surprises us with an unexpected self-released album: almost 2 hours / 36 instrumental tracks described as "music for daydreams." Available as a $5 download, or a FREE album-length download, as well as a variety of physical configurations. The new business model done right?I can tell Niggy Tardust was a warm up, this one is swinging for the fences!

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