Quote Unquote: Sen. Leahy puts it mildly
New Media: FON challenging starbucks' wi-fi
"Listen up, Frappucino-lovers -- cheap Wi-Fi could be headed to a Starbucks 
near you.
"...Madrid, Spain-based FON [has] launched a campaign called 'FonBucks,'...to hand out free wireless Internet routers (for which the company normally charges about $40) to people who live near Starbucks coffee shops...
"FON is one of the most interesting new entrants in the wireless industry, largely due to its unique model. Here's how the service works: For a small fee, ($2 per day), anyone can use a FON network when near a hotspot, but FON members... must purchase a wireless router and then choose to either give away the extra bandwidth for free, or charge for it...
"Of course, the success of the service relies on widespread growth...exactly what FON is hoping the FonBucks campaign — and more importantly, soon-to-launch strategic partnerships — will help achieve...
"If it sounds warm and fuzzy, it is and it isn't. Like Vonage and Skype, FON is a disruptive company in an industry that, like most others, doesn't like to be disrupted....[T]hey did run through 10,000 free Wi-Fi routers very quickly in a similar campaign they ran recently. After all, who doesn't like free Internet access? Or frothy Frappuccinos, for that matter."
The rest of the story: Third Screen.
[FON is available on Main Street, Santa Monica at Library Alehouse.]
near you."...Madrid, Spain-based FON [has] launched a campaign called 'FonBucks,'...to hand out free wireless Internet routers (for which the company normally charges about $40) to people who live near Starbucks coffee shops...
"FON is one of the most interesting new entrants in the wireless industry, largely due to its unique model. Here's how the service works: For a small fee, ($2 per day), anyone can use a FON network when near a hotspot, but FON members... must purchase a wireless router and then choose to either give away the extra bandwidth for free, or charge for it...
"Of course, the success of the service relies on widespread growth...exactly what FON is hoping the FonBucks campaign — and more importantly, soon-to-launch strategic partnerships — will help achieve...
"If it sounds warm and fuzzy, it is and it isn't. Like Vonage and Skype, FON is a disruptive company in an industry that, like most others, doesn't like to be disrupted....[T]hey did run through 10,000 free Wi-Fi routers very quickly in a similar campaign they ran recently. After all, who doesn't like free Internet access? Or frothy Frappuccinos, for that matter."
The rest of the story: Third Screen.
[FON is available on Main Street, Santa Monica at Library Alehouse.]
Perry Farrell's Satellite Party
Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros frontman Perry Farrell has a new project, Satellite Party, his first since founding Lollapalooza. The new band will introduce a concept album in mid-May called Ultra Payloaded. Farrell says he believes people can change the world one step at a time, and Satellite Party is meant to be part of a musical movement to do just that. The music of
Satellite Party, it is asserted, tells a story through a collaborative brain trust of artists, musicians and environmentalists called The Solutionists, who seek to redesign the world and come up with solutions for environmental problems.
I haven't seen the band live yet, but the cuts available for download show both Farrell and former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt in good form; however, I'm pulling most of this post from a press release, so take it for what it's worth. It's offered primarily in the spirit of, if you're not part of The Solutionists, you're part of The Problemists.
Blending sounds as varied as rock, electro, urban beats and symphonic classical music, Farrell and Bettencourt are backed by a trio that includes Kevin Figueiredo on drums, Etty Lau Farrell on background vocals and Carl Restivo on bass. The album, produced by Farrell, co-produced by Bettencourt and executive produced by Steve Lillywhite, has guests that include the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea and John Frusciante, UK production duo/beat-makers Hybrid, New Order/Joy Division bassist Peter Hook, down tempo pioneers Thievery Corporation, Porno for Pyros' guitarist Peter DiStefano, Black Eyed Pea's Fergie, film composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Chronicles of Narnia, Kingdom of Heaven), and a 30-piece orchestra.
The album includes an unreleased Jim Morrison vocal track, Woman In The Window, the first unheard performance by the priapic lead singer of the Doors in almost 30 years. "Just try
and stop us," sings Morrison against a backdrop of Farrell's music,"we're going to love." Farrell calls the lyric the mantra of The Solutionists. Other tracks are "Wish Upon A Dog Star" -- the album's first single, "Kinky," and "Celebrate," a Sly Stone-like groove marrying calypso and disco. "Awesome," written about seeing the world from the heavens, sounds like a marriage between David Bowie and Nick Drake.
Three years in the making, Ultra Payloaded is a wake-up call fired, it says here, by the same passion and idealism with which Farrell has worked to better the environment, as when he used his proceeds from Lollapalooza to work with the Costa Rican government to help preserve the rainforest, and human rights, as when he raised money for the relief fund and the rescuing of slaves in Sudan. Farrell and Satellite Party are working closely on climate change with Stop Global Warming (http://www.stopglobalwarming.com) and Global Cool (http://www.global-cool.com).
Satellite Party allegedly made its first live appearance in Aspen on
(allegedly, because Perry & Nuno played together as Satellite Party at Lollapalooza last year and did a secret show at Spaceland the night before Aspen) as part of the 2007 ESPN Winter X-Games. The band is on MySpace, of course, and you can download Wish Upon a Dogstar and some of the other tunes here and here. Additional tour and live dates will be announced on http://www.satelliteparty.com.
Satellite Party, it is asserted, tells a story through a collaborative brain trust of artists, musicians and environmentalists called The Solutionists, who seek to redesign the world and come up with solutions for environmental problems.I haven't seen the band live yet, but the cuts available for download show both Farrell and former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt in good form; however, I'm pulling most of this post from a press release, so take it for what it's worth. It's offered primarily in the spirit of, if you're not part of The Solutionists, you're part of The Problemists.
Blending sounds as varied as rock, electro, urban beats and symphonic classical music, Farrell and Bettencourt are backed by a trio that includes Kevin Figueiredo on drums, Etty Lau Farrell on background vocals and Carl Restivo on bass. The album, produced by Farrell, co-produced by Bettencourt and executive produced by Steve Lillywhite, has guests that include the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea and John Frusciante, UK production duo/beat-makers Hybrid, New Order/Joy Division bassist Peter Hook, down tempo pioneers Thievery Corporation, Porno for Pyros' guitarist Peter DiStefano, Black Eyed Pea's Fergie, film composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Chronicles of Narnia, Kingdom of Heaven), and a 30-piece orchestra.
The album includes an unreleased Jim Morrison vocal track, Woman In The Window, the first unheard performance by the priapic lead singer of the Doors in almost 30 years. "Just try
and stop us," sings Morrison against a backdrop of Farrell's music,"we're going to love." Farrell calls the lyric the mantra of The Solutionists. Other tracks are "Wish Upon A Dog Star" -- the album's first single, "Kinky," and "Celebrate," a Sly Stone-like groove marrying calypso and disco. "Awesome," written about seeing the world from the heavens, sounds like a marriage between David Bowie and Nick Drake.Three years in the making, Ultra Payloaded is a wake-up call fired, it says here, by the same passion and idealism with which Farrell has worked to better the environment, as when he used his proceeds from Lollapalooza to work with the Costa Rican government to help preserve the rainforest, and human rights, as when he raised money for the relief fund and the rescuing of slaves in Sudan. Farrell and Satellite Party are working closely on climate change with Stop Global Warming (http://www.stopglobalwarming.com) and Global Cool (http://www.global-cool.com).
Satellite Party allegedly made its first live appearance in Aspen on
(allegedly, because Perry & Nuno played together as Satellite Party at Lollapalooza last year and did a secret show at Spaceland the night before Aspen) as part of the 2007 ESPN Winter X-Games. The band is on MySpace, of course, and you can download Wish Upon a Dogstar and some of the other tunes here and here. Additional tour and live dates will be announced on http://www.satelliteparty.com.
Access: Villaraigosa announces plan for citywide Wi-Fi by 2009
"Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa outlined plans Tuesday to blanket Los Angeles with wireless Internet access in 2009, in what would be one of the nation's largest urban Wi-Fi networks.
"The L.A. Wi-Fi initiative would give Los Angeles residents, schools, businesses and visitors uninterrupted high-speed Internet connections — for work, research, Web browsing or even phone calls.
"More than 300 municipalities nationwide already have launched plans for similar networks based on the Wi-Fi technology that has become popular at coffee shops, bookstores, public parks and countless other so-called hot spots...
"The city's existing commercial broadband providers — AT&T Inc., Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications Inc. — aren't planning to oppose the city's efforts. Verizon, which once joined cable giant Comcast Corp. to try to curtail Philadelphia's wireless project, no longer stands in the way of municipalities."
The rest of the story: L.A.Times
Connectivity headed for the nation's 4th largest town, too:
City Wi-Fi coming, but will it be worth what you'll pay? (Houston Chronicle)
"The L.A. Wi-Fi initiative would give Los Angeles residents, schools, businesses and visitors uninterrupted high-speed Internet connections — for work, research, Web browsing or even phone calls.
"More than 300 municipalities nationwide already have launched plans for similar networks based on the Wi-Fi technology that has become popular at coffee shops, bookstores, public parks and countless other so-called hot spots...
"The city's existing commercial broadband providers — AT&T Inc., Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications Inc. — aren't planning to oppose the city's efforts. Verizon, which once joined cable giant Comcast Corp. to try to curtail Philadelphia's wireless project, no longer stands in the way of municipalities."
The rest of the story: L.A.Times
Connectivity headed for the nation's 4th largest town, too:
City Wi-Fi coming, but will it be worth what you'll pay? (Houston Chronicle)
Kim Jong Il is 65 today (no plans to retire)
Long ago, in a former life, I was cultural editor of The Guardian, the Left's fishwrap of record. As the gatekeeper of political correctness, the paper was the recipient of bales of propaganda generated by leftist governments around the globe. Cuban marketing was colorful, inventive, idealistic; Vietnamese humorless, plodding and dull; but the most entertaining by far was North Korea's: paranoid, batty, an open invitation to parody. I think the first inkling had by the dour Trotskyites who ran the tabloid that they might have erred in hiring on a bunch of New Lefties -- radical anarchist hippies, as they soon thought of us -- probably came when it dawned on them that we venerated with insufficient fervor the great Korean revolutionary leader, Kim Il-sung.
The Guardian's guardians eventually fired the lot of us for other crimes against History, but looking back I think the trouble started at the moment a shrine to Kim the Elder, inevitably called Kim's Korner, sprang up in the newsroom. Each day new iconographic images of the capo di commies arrived (the Chinese pr mavens were pretty good at turning Mao and the gang into cartoon characters, too, but there was something truly inspired about Big Kim's comix) accompanied by transcripts of perorations by the Great One that must have required days to deliver and certainly consumed vast swaths of forest to reprint.
In a world where a public figure can overstay his welcome in a weekend, how reassuring that we can still, forty years later, celebrate the birth of Kim Sr.'s
roly-poly and unaccountably vain offspring and successor, Kim Jong-il, who may or may not be 65 today (in a tip of the hat to Sino-style mythmaking, Junior likes to say he was born in 1942 in Papa's fabled guerrilla camp atop sacred Mount Paektu, the North's highest peak, an event that was marked by the appearance of a double rainbow and the birth of an especially bright star, as if one omen by itself would not be up to such a big job). There'll be extra portions of gruel in the bowls of Kim's countrymen tonight as they wish him a long and happy life, a little hungry, it's true, but thankful nonetheless to be safe under the Protector's nuclear umbrella from the inclemency of Japanese and American aggression.
So Happy Birthday to Kim Jong-il -- "Lode Star of the Twenty-First Century," "Eternal Bosom of Hot Love" and "Guardian Deity of the Planet," a rampart of stability in an otherwise insecure and volatile world.
The Guardian's guardians eventually fired the lot of us for other crimes against History, but looking back I think the trouble started at the moment a shrine to Kim the Elder, inevitably called Kim's Korner, sprang up in the newsroom. Each day new iconographic images of the capo di commies arrived (the Chinese pr mavens were pretty good at turning Mao and the gang into cartoon characters, too, but there was something truly inspired about Big Kim's comix) accompanied by transcripts of perorations by the Great One that must have required days to deliver and certainly consumed vast swaths of forest to reprint.
In a world where a public figure can overstay his welcome in a weekend, how reassuring that we can still, forty years later, celebrate the birth of Kim Sr.'s
roly-poly and unaccountably vain offspring and successor, Kim Jong-il, who may or may not be 65 today (in a tip of the hat to Sino-style mythmaking, Junior likes to say he was born in 1942 in Papa's fabled guerrilla camp atop sacred Mount Paektu, the North's highest peak, an event that was marked by the appearance of a double rainbow and the birth of an especially bright star, as if one omen by itself would not be up to such a big job). There'll be extra portions of gruel in the bowls of Kim's countrymen tonight as they wish him a long and happy life, a little hungry, it's true, but thankful nonetheless to be safe under the Protector's nuclear umbrella from the inclemency of Japanese and American aggression.So Happy Birthday to Kim Jong-il -- "Lode Star of the Twenty-First Century," "Eternal Bosom of Hot Love" and "Guardian Deity of the Planet," a rampart of stability in an otherwise insecure and volatile world.
NWO: 1-31-07 Never Forget
Since most domestic anti-terrorism efforts don't extend beyond inconveniencing law-abiding citizens, the endless identification checks and the forced confiscations of shampoo bottles and tubes of toothpaste rarely exceed the vexacious; only 
occasionally do they rise to the spectacularly ridiculous level achieved in Boston during the recent attack of the mooninites. To commemorate the events of 1-31-07, The Mep Report made a video of the chaos precipitated by the response of Boston authorities to the marketing campaign for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon. It might have been more reassuring if Beantown's public safety officials had accepted responsibility for overreacting and offered to make an attempt to learn from an experience that nearly brought a major metropolitan area to a standstill. Instead, we are left with the impression that all it will take to bollix Home Security, at least in Boston, is to give it the digital finger. Wikipedia already has an entry: 2007 Boston Mooninite Scare.
occasionally do they rise to the spectacularly ridiculous level achieved in Boston during the recent attack of the mooninites. To commemorate the events of 1-31-07, The Mep Report made a video of the chaos precipitated by the response of Boston authorities to the marketing campaign for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon. It might have been more reassuring if Beantown's public safety officials had accepted responsibility for overreacting and offered to make an attempt to learn from an experience that nearly brought a major metropolitan area to a standstill. Instead, we are left with the impression that all it will take to bollix Home Security, at least in Boston, is to give it the digital finger. Wikipedia already has an entry: 2007 Boston Mooninite Scare.
2008: Bill Richardson's foreign policy experience
I continue to believe, as I did in 2004, that the ticket of John Edwards for president and Bill Richardson for vice-president is the most formidable of the possible combinations the Democrats might field. A red herring in every presidential contest is the lack of foreign policy experience attributed to the potential nominees, especially the Democrats. Gov. Richardson, who entered the race last week, is one aspirant who will be immune from this canard. If he doesn't end up being Edwards' vice-president, at least he should be secretary of state. Among his diplomatic efforts so far:
December 1984: As chairman of the congressional Hispanic caucus, Richardson headed a delegation to nine countries in Latin America.
Late 1988: Richardson traveled to Angola to meet with rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, who was fighting against the Marxist-led government.
August 1993: Richardson traveled to Myanmar where he was the first non-family member permitted to visit pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi while she was under house arrest.
July 1994: In a meeting with Gen. Raoul Cedras, Richardson urged the then military ruler of Haiti to step aside and allow Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return to power. Although Cedras refused to abdicate immediately, he fled the country three months later under pressure from Pres. Clinton.
December 1994: Richardson spent five days in North Korea negotiating the release of two U.S. Army helicopter pilots who had been shot down. The governor left with the remains of one who had died in the crash. Eight days after his departure, the surviving pilot was released in the wake of a separate visit by a Clinton administration official.
July 1995: Richardson flew to Iraq and successfully negotiated with Saddam Hussein for the release of two U.S. oil workers who wandered over the Iraq-Kuwait border.
January 1996: Richardson visited Cuba to press Fidel Castro for the release of political prisoners and for human rights reform. After a return visit a month later, Castro released three of 10 prisoners Richardson had requested.
March 1996: In a secret meeting in Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic gave Richardson a Balkan peace plan to take back to Washington. The Clinton administration found it unacceptable.
July 1996: In Bangladesh, Richardson negotiated the release of an American woman, Eliadah "Lia'' McCord, who had received a life sentence for muling heroin.
November 1996: On a fourth trip to North Korea, his first as special U.S. envoy, Richardson successfully negotiated the release of a troubled 26-year-old American named Evan Hunziker who had entered the country by swimming across the Yalu River.
December 1996: Richardson successfully negotiated the release of three Red Cross workers held captive by rebels in Sudan.
April 1997: Richardson, on his first mission as U.N. ambassador, traveled to Zaire to try to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power from Mobutu Sese Seko to Laurent Kabila. The two foes couldn't agree on a meeting place.
April 1998: The first cabinet-rank American in 24 years to visit Afghanistan, Richardson tried to persuade the Taliban to make peace with the Northern Alliance, improve the status of women and expel Osama bin Laden.
September 2006: Richardson was successful in negotiations with Pres. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for the release of a New Mexico journalist and two others who had entered the country from Chad without papers to report on atrocities in Darfur.
January 2007: Richardson made a third trip to Sudan, this time to negotiate with al-Bashir and rebel leaders for an end to the fighting in Darfur. The Sudanese president refused Richardson's request to allow U.N. peacekeepers in to the country. He did agree to a cease-fire, but he broke it a few days later.
From Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life by Bill Richardson.
December 1984: As chairman of the congressional Hispanic caucus, Richardson headed a delegation to nine countries in Latin America.
Late 1988: Richardson traveled to Angola to meet with rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, who was fighting against the Marxist-led government.
August 1993: Richardson traveled to Myanmar where he was the first non-family member permitted to visit pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi while she was under house arrest.
July 1994: In a meeting with Gen. Raoul Cedras, Richardson urged the then military ruler of Haiti to step aside and allow Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return to power. Although Cedras refused to abdicate immediately, he fled the country three months later under pressure from Pres. Clinton.
December 1994: Richardson spent five days in North Korea negotiating the release of two U.S. Army helicopter pilots who had been shot down. The governor left with the remains of one who had died in the crash. Eight days after his departure, the surviving pilot was released in the wake of a separate visit by a Clinton administration official.
July 1995: Richardson flew to Iraq and successfully negotiated with Saddam Hussein for the release of two U.S. oil workers who wandered over the Iraq-Kuwait border.
January 1996: Richardson visited Cuba to press Fidel Castro for the release of political prisoners and for human rights reform. After a return visit a month later, Castro released three of 10 prisoners Richardson had requested.
March 1996: In a secret meeting in Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic gave Richardson a Balkan peace plan to take back to Washington. The Clinton administration found it unacceptable.
July 1996: In Bangladesh, Richardson negotiated the release of an American woman, Eliadah "Lia'' McCord, who had received a life sentence for muling heroin.
November 1996: On a fourth trip to North Korea, his first as special U.S. envoy, Richardson successfully negotiated the release of a troubled 26-year-old American named Evan Hunziker who had entered the country by swimming across the Yalu River.
December 1996: Richardson successfully negotiated the release of three Red Cross workers held captive by rebels in Sudan.
April 1997: Richardson, on his first mission as U.N. ambassador, traveled to Zaire to try to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power from Mobutu Sese Seko to Laurent Kabila. The two foes couldn't agree on a meeting place.
April 1998: The first cabinet-rank American in 24 years to visit Afghanistan, Richardson tried to persuade the Taliban to make peace with the Northern Alliance, improve the status of women and expel Osama bin Laden.
September 2006: Richardson was successful in negotiations with Pres. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for the release of a New Mexico journalist and two others who had entered the country from Chad without papers to report on atrocities in Darfur.
January 2007: Richardson made a third trip to Sudan, this time to negotiate with al-Bashir and rebel leaders for an end to the fighting in Darfur. The Sudanese president refused Richardson's request to allow U.N. peacekeepers in to the country. He did agree to a cease-fire, but he broke it a few days later.
From Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life by Bill Richardson.
Sen. Tester's schedule is an open book
The freshman senator from Montana, John Tester, is living up to an "impractical proposal" he made during the late campaign. As he promised voters he would do, Tester posts his complete daily schedule into an archive on his website. Constituents can see everyone with whom he meets and how he spends his time, down to dinners with his family and workout sessions in the Senate gym. Even included are such casual contacts as a hallway "hello" with a group of beer-industry lobbyists. On the House side, another Democrat, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, also posts her schedule daily, but unlike Sen. Tester she doesn't archive it.
2008: Biden exceeds expectations
Those applauding Sen. Joseph Biden's decision to enter the race for president because of a Biden campaign's proven comedic potential (see Impractical Proposals, 2008: Maybe we should adopt the WSJ's trick of picking stocks by throwing darts) have reason to feel pleased.
It would not have been unreasonable to expect the senator to make it through at least the first day of his campaign without controversy, but, as the front page headline in the New York Times summed it up, "Biden Unwraps ’08 Bid With an Oops!" (The L.A. Times headline was the more neutral, "Biden announces bid for presidency," but the subhead read, "Delaware senator is
forced to explain comment that called fellow senator Obama 'clean.'")
As the NYT's Dam Nagourney had it, Joe spent the first day of his campaign "struggling to explain his description of Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat running for president, as 'the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.'"
While this has made the Delaware Democrat the early front runner in the writers' room of every comedy show, he may have raised expectations too high by opening so strong, and will likely have trouble sustaining the momentum through the long, long months to the national convention. By end of his first day as a candidate, some Democratic party leaders were openly wondering if Biden would be remembered for running the shortest presidential campaign in history.
But you could see the ploy instead as evidence of Biden's heretofore undetected political acumen. What other aspirant, even among those with sounder prospects for success, garnered nearly as much attention on his first day? As an added benefit to the candidate, no one this time is likely to claim he cribbed his remarks.
Don't listen to the naysayers, Joe. Don't quit anytime soon. The Democratic party needs you. Stewart and Letterman and Leno need you. We need you.
But, for pete's sake, pace yourself.
It would not have been unreasonable to expect the senator to make it through at least the first day of his campaign without controversy, but, as the front page headline in the New York Times summed it up, "Biden Unwraps ’08 Bid With an Oops!" (The L.A. Times headline was the more neutral, "Biden announces bid for presidency," but the subhead read, "Delaware senator is
forced to explain comment that called fellow senator Obama 'clean.'")As the NYT's Dam Nagourney had it, Joe spent the first day of his campaign "struggling to explain his description of Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat running for president, as 'the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.'"
While this has made the Delaware Democrat the early front runner in the writers' room of every comedy show, he may have raised expectations too high by opening so strong, and will likely have trouble sustaining the momentum through the long, long months to the national convention. By end of his first day as a candidate, some Democratic party leaders were openly wondering if Biden would be remembered for running the shortest presidential campaign in history.
But you could see the ploy instead as evidence of Biden's heretofore undetected political acumen. What other aspirant, even among those with sounder prospects for success, garnered nearly as much attention on his first day? As an added benefit to the candidate, no one this time is likely to claim he cribbed his remarks.
Don't listen to the naysayers, Joe. Don't quit anytime soon. The Democratic party needs you. Stewart and Letterman and Leno need you. We need you.
But, for pete's sake, pace yourself.
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