a crank’s progress

HaloScan.com - Comments:
Whoever has to take over next is going to be sooo in the dark they’ll need flashlights just to find their own fingers.

New iTunes steals your ability to turn Apple music into iPod-friendly MP3s:
Cory Doctorow: If you’re thinking of downgrading to the new iTunes, stop! The new iTunes breaks the ability to convert the music you’ve bought — even “DRM-free” songs sold at a 30 percent premium — into MP3s that will play on your iPod.
I dunno. [...]

Junk Science: DDT:
So, in a nutshell: the WHO was about to undertake an initiative that would have harmed the tobacco companies. The tobacco companies, in turn, hired shills to attack the WHO. They presumably hired some to attack the WHO’s tobacco initiative, but they also hired people to attack other things the WHO was doing [...]

Risks and Riddles:
The Soviet Union was a puzzle. Al Qaeda is a mystery. Why we need to know the difference

Georgie Anne Geyer: A spreading terror | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Opinion: Viewpoints:
[I]n the long-established Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, out of the blue arose a new al Qaeda-related insurgent group, Fatah al-Islam. Within days and even hours, the recurring hell of the Middle East was loosed, and refugees poured [...]

The iPod Death Clock - iPodMechanic.com
When will my iPod Croak?
(tags: humor ipod apple)

iTunes Plus is the new DRM-free offering from the iTunes Music Store: EMI has agreed to sell — rather than license — unencumbered tracks from its artists, at a higher bitrate and a higher price. The ones I got today are encoded at 256 kbits : the price differential is $.30/track or 30% of the [...]

Imagine having risked your life to go undercover for your country as a CIA operative and then having to listen to the likes of Jonah Goldberg, Fred Barnes and company belittle your work by falsely insulting you as a “desk jockey” and acting as though you were nothing but a worthless file clerk, all in [...]

Voting in 2007 or The Bush Economic Boycott:
The off-off-year election? “They totally ignored the 2006 elections. So vote again in 2007. Every dollar not spent to fuel the economy will eventually help save American and Iraqi lives.”
(tags: economics markets politics money iraq worstpresidentever)

One of the causes of feature creep in products like consumer…
“They became frustrated [...]