The reprieve extends the current terms until 2010, which means Net radio defined as “small” will NOT have to pay hugely increased royalties retroactive to 2006. But it also means small net radio can never grow and become larger. Plus, the largest of independent Net radio, like Pandora and Live365, might not qualify as “small” business and thus would have to pay the higher rates.

SaveNetRadio rejects the offer.

Radio and Internet Newsletter and the EFF says it doesn’t go far enough.

Here’s the answer: The Internet Radio Equality Act

Let’s keep organizing. That we got this far is due to the huge amounts of grassroots net-based organizing that publicized the issue and got the attention of Congress.

(Hmm, since being “small” is based on revenue, I wonder if that is determined by net-based revenue or total revenue? Not that this would be easy to determine.

Great stations like WWOZ in New Orleans and KCRW in Santa Monica broadcast on the air as well as on the net, as do many others. The powerhouse that is KCRW can easily raise $1 million in a 10 day fund raiser, so I’m guessing they won’t be categorized as small, while WWOZ could be. Anyone know?)

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The movie will be about Toussaint Louverture, the iconic leader of a successful slave revolt in the 18th century.

Glover said he wanted to educate the US about the story. “It’s been essentially wiped out of our historic memory, it’s been wiped clean.”

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No deadline, no spending cuts. They’re just flat giving Bush everything he wanted. Pathetic and complicit, aren’t they?

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Changed state to greet Bush Page 1, Hartford Courant this morning.

The national anti-war group ANSWER Coalition will already be protesting outside the academy [as other march in to join the protest]. National organizer Bill Hackwell said buses will roll in from all across the Northeast. The group’s message: “End the occupation of Iraq. Bring our troops home now,” he said.

Hackwell was clear that the protests are not about the 228 academy cadets who are becoming Coast Guard officers.

“It’s about the policies of the Bush administration,” he said. “Wherever he goes, there is a protest now against him.”

Last time, Bush [spoke at the Academy he] stood in the rain to deliver his message. This time, when Air Force One lands at the airport in Groton and his motorcade arrives at the academy, the only storm he’s expected to face is a tempest of protest.

If you’re in New England tomorrow, join us!

Full info, logistics, maps, at AnswerCT.org

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I just heard about a reservist in her late 50’s who walks with a cane. She’s never been in anything close to a war zone - and just received orders to go to Iraq for a year. And, due to her specialty, it’s no desk job she’ll be going to either…

Yes, of course reservists can get called to active duty. But a granny with a cane? This is madness.

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The deluge of comment spam on blogs mean spam killer plugins like Askimet will get false positives. When this happens, good comments get lost because there’s too many spam comments in the queue to go through all of them. (This blog has gotten upwards of 1,500 spam comments a day at times.)

Scoble, a major tech blogger, says comment spam is becoming a major problem for him, both in the sheer number of them and the problem of finding the good comments that got flagged as spam.

His blog runs on WordPress.com, which doesn’t support plugins. This blog runs WordPress.org, which does. So I’ve installed a Captcha plugin. You’ll now have to type in a word to get your comment to post (if you haven’t previously been approved.)

This should cut the comment spam way down. Finding false positives will be much easier now.

WordPress.org Captcha plugins.

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It’s actually at least 60 seconds, according to actual tests that dropped food on a cafeteria floor then measured how long it took for bacteria to get on it.

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