25 Sep 2004
O'Connor Wants People to Stop Heckling (AP)

I have no idea why people would want to make fun of Ms. O'Connor. I mean, she's just a normal Irish lass who happens to have been a pop diva:

O'Connor, 37, specialized in attention-seeking stunts during her early career, most notoriously in 1992, when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on the U.S. TV show "Saturday Night Live" and declared, "Fight the real enemy." She also courted hostility from American audiences by refusing to allow the U.S. anthem to be played at her concerts there.

She was ordained a priest in a breakaway Catholic sect in 1999, but subsequently stopped referring to herself as "Mother Bernadette Mary" and said she'd found the celibacy rule impossible to follow.

Last year she declared she was retiring from the music business, was interested in a movement called the "Death Midwives" that counsels chronically ill people, and planned to train as a religion teacher for elementary school kids.

AP - One-time pop sensation Sinead O'Connor was back in the news Friday — by taking out a full-page ad pleading for people to stop making fun of her.

(link) [Yahoo! News - Top Stories]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

SPIT

Spam Over Internet Telephony.

I can't wait.

A new plague of unwanted messages threatens internet users, according to a US company. Spam and spim - spam by instant messenger – are about to be joined by "spit" - spam over internet telephony. Qovia, based in Frederick, Maryland, have recently filed two patent applications for technology to thwart spit.

(link) [Slashdot: ]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Conservative group savages anti-P2P bill

It's refreshing to see conservatives actually acting like conservatives for a change. But it's depressing that they have to resort to current political sloganerrring to do it:

"This is the Hollywood liberals trying to crush innovation," said ACU deputy director Stacie Rumenap. "What's sad is that they've got Republicans on their side." A Senate committee vote on the bill is scheduled for Thursday.

Of course, the real push for this kind of idiotic legislation isn't coming from "Hollywood liberals" - it's coming from huge media conglomerates: the kind of corporations whose executives traditionally support Republican causes. But we couldn't say that, now could we?

Political wrangling over a copyright bill that could imperil some MP3 players heats up in the Senate before a vote next Thursday.

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Can you say 'offshore' anymore?

Gotta love the quote from Jim Hightower:

"Excellent news, Americans! U.S. corporations say that they are no longer 'offshoring' our middle-class jobs," Hightower wrote in an essay published Friday. "Does this mean that greedheaded CEOs are no longer shipping our manufacturing, professional, and high-tech jobs to India, Pakistan, Russia and other low-wage centers? Of course not. It simply means they no longer say the word 'offshoring.'"

Politically charged phrase disappearing as firms cook up new terms to describe sending work to cheaper labor markets.

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link