The horrible grunt of the Tasmanian devil.

Jim Mitchell sez: “There’s an unbelievably good audio file of a howling Tasmanian Devil in the travel section Sunday’s SFGate.com. This may be the worst sound ever emitted by a carbon-based life form.” 

The worst ever? I think not. One of our cats, Joey AKA The Howler Monkey emitted such a hideous yowling constant unending shriek upon being taken to the vet that when the vet realized I’d brought him in on the wrong day, said, we have to see the cat now, we can’t make him bring Joey back again.

I will record Joey on his next vet vist. This Tasmanian Devil is about a 4 on the Joey Howler Money scale (which goes to 10.) You probably think I’m exaggerating, don’t you?

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After researching podcasting a bit, and checking the reviews of mp3 players in PC Mag, I decided against getting an iPod, and instead ordered the iRiver H320 20 GB mp3 player from Amazon. It differs from the iPod in that it has FM reception and can record.

What’s the big deal with podcasting? Well, if I’d had the iRiver at the Counter-Inaugural demonstration on Thursday, I could have recorded Ron Kovic’s impassioned speech as an MP3, uploaded it to PoliZeros, attached it to my RSS feed, then anyone who has a Podcast receiver would automatically get the audio file downloaded to their mp3 player. This is way cool stuff indeed. Podcasting is in its infancy, in a year or so it’ll be huge.

Receiving podcasts is easy. Download the free, open source iPodder. Choose the feeds you want. It’ll download them automatically. Plug the mp3 player into the computer and it’ll suck the podcasts in. No user intervention needed!

There are now a few hundred podcast shows. The best known is Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code, an excellent mixture of geek talk, podcasting news, and music. He also spearheaded the creation of iPodder. I expect many more shows and new uses for podcasting to be appearing in the next few months.

The is radio, but radio on demand, when you want to listen to it. With a $40 add-on, your mp3 player can broadcast via your car radio (or any radio) so you can listen to shows in the car or another room or another house.

LINKS

iPodder podcast receiver

Ipodder.org. The resource for the iPod platform.

Wikipedia podcasting

A few podcast shows

Podcast.net. A comprehensive list of podcast shows.

The following links are for the website. Use iPodder to subscribe to the rss feed and receive the podcasts.

Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code

Dave Winer’s The Scripting News

Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles

How To

How to podcast - both ways (send and receive)

Doc Searls: How To

On the receiving end, podcasting is easy. Get iPodder and plug your mp3 player in the computer. On the sending end, podcasting gets more complex. However, if you blog, and your blog software is Radio Userland like this blog, then it’s simple, as Radio supports enclosures. When you post the entry, just add the file location and, bang, anyone with a podcast receiver will get the file in their mp3 player. Other blog software also supports podcasting too.

Podcasting is quite new. New and inventive uses of podcasting will be (and already are!) popping up. Anyone out  there podcasting? Let me know!

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NCAR Study Points to Global Warming as Key Factor

The percentage of Earth’s land area stricken by serious drought more than doubled from the 1970s to the early 2000s, according to a new analysis by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Widespread drying occurred over much of Europe and Asia, Canada, western and southern Africa, and eastern Australia. Rising global temperatures appear to be a major factor, says NCAR’s Aiguo Dai, lead author of the study.

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By Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General, and co-founder of the International Action Center, who in turn was a  co-founder of the ANSWER Coalition.

That Hussein and other former Iraqi officials must have lawyers of their choice to assist them in defending against the criminal charges brought against them ought to be self-evident among a people committed to truth, justice and the rule of law.

The United States, and the Bush administration in particular, engineered the demonization of Hussein, and it has a clear political interest in his conviction. Obviously, a fair trial of Hussein will be difficult to ensure — and critically important to the future of democracy in Iraq. This trial will write history, affect the course of violence around the world and have an impact on hopes for reconciliation within Iraq.

Hussein has been held illegally for more than a year without once meeting a family member, friend or lawyer of his choice.

International law requires that every criminal court be competent, independent and impartial. The Iraqi Special Tribunal lacks all of these essential qualities. It was illegitimate in its conception — the creation of an illegal occupying power that demonized Saddam Hussein and destroyed the government it now intends to condemn by law.

The concept, personnel, funding and functions of the court were chosen and are still controlled by the United States, dependent on its will and partial to its wishes. Reform is impossible. Proceedings before the Iraqi Special Tribunal would corrupt justice both in fact and in appearance and create more hatred and rage in Iraq against the American occupation. Only another court — one that is actually competent, independent and impartial — can lawfully sit in judgment.

Any court that considers criminal charges against Saddam Hussein must have the power and the mandate to consider charges against leaders and military personnel of the U.S., Britain and the other nations that participated in the aggression against Iraq, if equal justice under law is to have meaning.

No power, or person, can be above the law. For there to be peace, the days of victor’s justice must end.

The defense of such a case is a challenge of great importance to truth, the rule of law and peace. A lawyer qualified for the task and able to undertake it, if chosen, should accept such service as his highest duty.

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