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Today's Topics:
1. Former governor Ann Richards dies (Greg Williams)
2. Proposed Treaty on TV Signals Spurs Criticism (George Antunes)
3. Unable to Repeat the Past (George Antunes)
4. NASA's new ORION vehicle hits first snag (Williams, Gregory S.)
5. Rage over MySpace photo leads to arrest (Williams, Gregory S.)
6. Air Ameerica denies bankruptcy rumors (Williams, Gregory S.)
7. Air America Acknowledges Some Layoffs (Williams, Gregory S.)
8. Air America Stiffs Al Franken (Williams, Gregory S.)
9. Analyst predicts plunge in gas prices (Williams, Gregory S.)
10. Microsoft Introduces the Zune (Williams, Gregory S.)
11. Space station gets new set of solar energy panels
(Williams, Gregory S.)
12. iTunes 7 DRM Already Cracked (Williams, Gregory S.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:57:07 -0400
From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Former governor Ann Richards dies
To: Media News <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Former governor Ann Richards dies
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091406dntexrichardsobit.2d70e4f.html
11:30 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Associated Press
AUSTIN ? Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant
Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died
Wednesday night at her home surrounded by her family after a battle with
cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.
Richards was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in March and underwent
chemotherapy treatments.
Her four adult children spent the day with her, said Cathy Bonner, a
longtime family friend and family spokeswoman.
"They're a strong group of people but they're broken-hearted, of
course," Bonner said.
Political leaders remembered Richards Wednesday night for her leadership.
"We've lost a little bit of that mystique and that wonderfulness that so
captivates the rest of this country about Texas," former Dallas Mayor
Ron Kirk said. "She was a wonderful spirit, a great fighter and
humanitarian, and a political leader of enormous courage and compassion
and a wonderful inspiration to so many Texans for so many reasons."
Gov. Rick Perry described Richards as "the epitome of Texas politics: a
figure larger than life who had a gift for captivating the public with
her great wit."
The silver-haired, silver-tongued Richards had said she entered politics
to help others ? especially women and minorities who were often ignored
by Texas' male-dominated establishment.
"So much of what I know about things ... are driven by the passion she
had," former Laredo Mayor Betty Flores said.
"I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I
think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to
everyone,' " Richards told an interviewer shortly before leaving office
in January 1995.
"She had a political instinct. I wrote her a note when I heard about her
cancer and she wrote me back a wonderful letter. She was upbeat and
positive and I think she was going to go out with guns blazing," said
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. "She's a person that never stopped
enjoying whatever there was in life that she could enjoy."
Richards served as Texas governor for one term before losing an
re-election bid to Republican George W. Bush.
Her family said as governor she was most proud of two actions that
probably cost her re-election. She vetoed legislation that would allow
people to carry concealed handguns, automatic weapons and "cop-killer
bullets." She also vetoed a bill that critics said would have allowed
the destruction of the Edwards Aquifer, a major underground water system
that now serves 1.7 million in people in south central Texas, including
the city of San Antonio.
She grabbed the national spotlight with her keynote address to the 1988
Democratic National Convention when she was the Texas state treasurer.
Richards won cheers from delegates when she reminded them that Ginger
Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, "only backwards and in high heels."
Richards sealed her partisan reputation with a blast at a fellow Texan,
Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, then-vice president: "Poor George, he
can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Four years later, she chaired the Democratic convention that nominated
Bill Clinton for president.
Richards rose to the governorship with her come-from-behind victory over
millionaire cowboy Clayton Williams in 1990. She cracked a half-century
male grip on the Governor's Mansion and celebrated by holding aloft a
T-shirt that showed the state Capitol and read: "A woman's place is in
the dome."
In four years as governor, Richards championed what she called the "New
Texas," appointing more women and more minorities to state posts than
any of her predecessors.
She appointed the first black as a University of Texas regent, the first
crime victim to the state Criminal Justice Board, the first disabled
person to the human services board and the first teacher to chair the
State Board of Education. Under Richards, the fabled Texas Rangers
pinned stars on their first black and female officers.
She polished Texas' image, courted movie producers, championed the North
American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico, oversaw a doubling of the
state prison system and presided over rising student achievement scores
and plunging dropout rates.
She even took time out to celebrate her 60th birthday by earning her
motorcycle driver's license.
Throughout her years in office, her personal popularity remained high.
One poll put it at over 60 percent the year she lost her re-election bid
to Bush.
"I may have lost the race," Richards said after that defeat. "But I
don't think I lost the good feelings that people have about me in this
state. That's tremendously reassuring to me."
Richards went on to give speeches, work as a commentator for Cable News
Network and serve as a senior adviser in the New York office of Public
Strategies Inc., an Austin-based consulting firm.
In her last 10 years, Richards worked for many social causes and helped
develop the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, scheduled to
open in Austin in 2007.
Born in Lakeview, Texas, in 1933, Richards grew up near Waco, married
civil rights lawyer David Richards and spent her early adulthood
volunteering in campaigns and raising four children. She often said the
hardest job she ever had was as a public school teacher at Fulmore
Junior High School in Austin.
In the early 1960s, she helped form the North Dallas Democratic Women,
"basically to allow us to have something substantive to do; the regular
Democratic Party and its organization was run by men who looked on women
as little more than machine parts."
Richards served on the Travis County Commissioners Court in Austin for
six years before jumping to a bigger arena in 1982. Her election as
state treasurer made her the first woman elected statewide in nearly 50
years.
But politics took a toll. It helped break up her marriage. And public
life forced her to be remarkably candid about her 1980 treatment for
alcoholism.
"I had seen the very bottom of life," she once recalled. "I was so
afraid I wouldn't be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my
zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn't. Recovery turned out to be
a wonderful thing."
The 1990 election was rugged. Her Democratic primary opponent,
then-Attorney General Jim Mattox, accused her of using illegal drugs.
Williams, an oilman, banker and rancher, spent millions of his own money
on the race she narrowly won.
After her unsuccessful re-election campaign against Bush, Richards said
she never missed being in public office.
Asked once what she might have done differently had she known she was
going to be a one-term governor, Richards grinned.
"Oh, I would probably have raised more hell."
Richards is survived by her four children ? Cecile Richards, Daniel
Richards, Clark Richards and Ellen Richards; their spouses and eight
grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.
--
Greg Williams
K4HSM
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.twiar.org
http://www.etskywarn.net
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:24:08 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Proposed Treaty on TV Signals Spurs Criticism
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed;
x-avg-checked=avg-ok-1B56351A
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-nutreaty13sep13,1,7973906.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
Proposed Treaty on TV Signals Spurs Criticism
By Jim Puzzanghera
LA Times Staff Writer
September 13, 2006
WASHINGTON ? The proposal sounds modest enough: Broadcasters want to stop
international pirates from hijacking American TV signals and
re-transmitting them over the Internet.
But the high-tech industry and digital rights advocates see something more
sinister in the fine print of a proposed international treaty being
negotiated this week in Geneva. They fear it will end up restricting how
people can use legally recorded shows stashed on their TiVos or computer
hard drives.
"When I look at the language of the treaty, I begin to get frightened,"
said Jim Burger, an attorney who specializes in intellectual property
issues and represents high-tech companies, including TiVo Inc.
Pushed by U.S. and European TV networks, the treaty being considered by a
World Intellectual Property Organization committee would prohibit the theft
of their signals, as well as those from cable and satellite broadcasters.
TV broadcasters said they were not targeting average viewers recording
their favorite shows, just large-scale thieves stealing their business.
"If you send our signal ? to 100,000 people so it ruins our ability to
market our signals, we ought to be able to prohibit that," said Ben Ivins,
senior associate general counsel for the National Assn. of Broadcasters,
which has been pressing for the treaty for several years.
But in what is shaping up as the next major battle in the fight over
digital content, a coalition of phone companies, information technology
firms and digital rights advocates warn the proposed treaty could do much
more and is working to derail it.
The treaty's broad language would create an expansive new copyright on TV
signals that could lead to higher prices and more restrictions on home
recording. Watching shows on a digital video recorder, transmitting a
football game to a laptop via services such as SlingBox or simply moving
video from one device to another in a home network would technically be
considered a retransmission that requires the broadcaster's OK.
Critics say it's another desperate attempt by the broadcast industry to use
legislation to restrict technological innovation and keep a dying business
model on life support. The pattern, they say, stretches all the way back to
the battle over the first Betamax video recorders when the industry fought
new technology with legislation and lawsuits.
The entertainment industry has sought legislative intervention in the face
of other technological advances. The advent of the VCR led to a suit over
time shifting that it ultimately lost before the Supreme Court in 1984.
More recently, the creation of digital TV led broadcasters to press
Congress to require anti-copying technology, called the broadcast flag, be
embedded in the signal. Congress has resisted. It's also failed to take up
a push by movie studios for legislation to plug a technological hole that
allows people to bypass copy protection on DVDs.
Treaty foes said broadcasters could use the new copyright as leverage to
strike more favorable licensing deals with manufacturers or to force them
to build in blocking technology, such as preventing a recorded show from
being burned to a DVD.
"Many believe that the broadcasters see this exclusive right as a way to
protect an industry that is rapidly being eclipsed by technological
development," said Matthew Schruers, senior counsel for litigation and
legislative affairs at the Computer & Communications Industry Assn., an
industry trade group. "There is a fear that right could prevent the use of
cool new devices because people can't license them or because the
broadcasters don't want to license them."
The coalition boasts major companies such as AT&T Inc., Verizon
Communications Inc., Intel Corp. and Dell Inc. Verizon acknowledged that
the treaty could be a help as it rolls out cable TV service, but it worries
that the company's larger business of Internet access could suffer because
of potential liability for illegal retransmissions.
"The reason why they want this right ? is they can get additional money out
of players they haven't been able to charge before," Sarah Deutsch,
Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel, said of traditional
broadcasters. "The whole concept of giving an intellectual property right
to a signal is ridiculous."
Under the proposed treaty, the broadcaster of a TV signal ? over the air or
via satellite or cable ? would get a 50-year copyright. The right would be
in addition to the copyright already given to a program's creator.
The retransmission of TV signals is illegal under U.S. law. But many
countries give stronger protection to broadcast signals under a 1961 treaty
that the U.S. never joined. The World Intellectual Property Organization,
an agency of the United Nations based in Geneva, has been trying to update
that treaty for the digital age.
Broadcasters said technological advances had made it easier to steal
signals, and the Internet is a ready-made distribution network. They point
to a Canadian company, ICraveTV.com, that hijacked signals from four
Buffalo, N.Y., stations in 1999 and shipped them to their users. A U.S.
judge shut down the site for infringing the copyrights on the programming.
Broadcasters complain that there's no similar right covering the signals,
and they're losing advertising revenue because of pirates in the Caribbean,
Mexico and China. There are no precise dollar figures for TV signal piracy
in the U.S. But this summer, Envisional Ltd., a British Internet monitoring
company, estimated each episode of the most popular TV shows is downloaded
about a million times.
The proposed treaty has been progressing quietly, but opposition has been
building in recent months. This spring, a study prepared for UNESCO, the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, concluded
that the proposed treaty "could prevent or restrict" the flow of news
broadcasts and other information considered in the public domain.
Opponents of the treaty said broadcasters could accomplish their
anti-piracy goals with a narrow international pact that simply prohibits
the theft of TV signals. Their push for more expansive copyright protection
arouses suspicions.
"Thou shalt not steal is something we appreciate and think a treaty could
be based on that," said Jeff Lawrence, director of global content policy
for Intel. "We're just uncomfortable with starting to create whole new
categories of intellectual property rights to potentially protect
particular business models."
But broadcasters said they needed the ability not only to stop piracy but
also to license it to bring in more money abroad.
The U.S. delegation has been pushing for the treaty, along with its
European counterparts. If the World Intellectual Property Organization
approves a treaty, it will be effective only in countries that pass
separate implementing legislation. Broadcasters said Congress could limit
the treaty's scope in the U.S., adding traditional protections for personal
use of copyrighted materials, known as fair use.
But treaty opponents said it might be hard to stop the treaty's momentum
once it was approved internationally. And the ultimate victims may be
average viewers who find their ability to record TV programs limited or
more costly because of broadcasters' efforts.
"It shows an old-fashioned way to look at technology and innovation," said
Manon Ress of the Consumer Project on Technology, an international
organization that focuses on the flow of information.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:34:59 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Unable to Repeat the Past
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed;
x-avg-checked=avg-ok-1B56351A
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-archive13sep13,1,7330843.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Unable to Repeat the Past
Storing information is easier than ever, but it's also never been so easy
to lose it -- forever. We could end up with a modern history gap.
By Charles Piller
LA Times Staff Writer
September 13, 2006
Carter G. Walker remembers the day her memories vanished.
After sending an e-mail to her aunt, the Montana freelance writer stepped
away from the computer to make a grilled-cheese sandwich. She returned a
few minutes later to a black screen. Data recovery experts did what they
could, but the hard drive was beyond saving ? as were the precious moments
Walker had entrusted to it.
"All my pregnancy pictures are gone. The video from my first daughter's
first couple of days is gone," Walker said. "It was like a piece of my
brain was cut out."
Walker's digital amnesia has become a frustratingly common part of life.
Computers make storing personal letters, family pictures and home movies
more convenient than ever. But those captured moments can disappear with a
few errant mouse clicks ? or for no apparent reason at all.
It's not just household memories at risk. Professional archivists, those
charged with preserving the details of society, tell a grim joke: Billions
of digitized snapshots, Hollywood movies and government annals, they say,
"will last forever, or five years, whichever comes first."
Socrates described memory as "a block of wax ? the mother of the muses. But
when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget and do not know."
Digital storage methods, although vastly more capacious than the paper they
are rapidly replacing, have proved the softest wax. Heat and humidity can
destroy computer disks and tapes in as little as a year. Computers can
break down and software often becomes unusable in a few years. A storage
format can quickly become obsolete, making the information it holds
effectively inaccessible.
No one has compiled an inventory of lost records, but archivists regularly
stumble upon worrisome examples. Reports detailing the military's spraying
of the defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam, needed for research and medical
care, were obliterated. Census data from the 1960s through 1980s
disappeared. A multitude of electronic voting records vanished without a trace.
Records considered at risk by the National Archives include diagrams and
maps needed to secure the nuclear stockpile and policy documents used to
inform partners in the war on terror. Much like global warming, the archive
problem emerged suddenly, its effects remain murky and the brunt of its
effect will be felt by future generations. The era we are living in could
become a gap in history.
"If we don't solve the problem, our time will not become part of the past,"
said Kenneth Thibodaux, who directs electronic records preservation for the
National Archives. "It will largely vanish."
Humans have long imprinted collective memories on available objects,
inscribing stone slabs, marking paper, etching paraffin cylinders and
finally encoding computer disks. Chinese astronomers of the Shang Dynasty
etched the words "three flames ate the sun" onto an ox scapula to pass on
their celestial observations.
Thirty-two centuries later, that "oracle bone" confirmed for today's
scientists an ancient eclipse, which allowed them to recalibrate their
understanding of how the sun affects the Earth's spin.
Suppose those early stargazers had scratched out their findings in secret
code on a mud flat. In effect, that's what NASA did when it used digital
tape to store spaceflight data from the 1960s and 1970s. The observations
could have helped unravel today's climate change and deforestation
mysteries, but by the 1990s most of the tape had degraded beyond recovery.
Federal practices haven't improved much since then. Leading archivists said
that the records of George W. Bush's presidency would probably be far less
complete than those of Abraham Lincoln's.
In Lincoln's day, scribes vigilantly penned events and actions momentous or
minute. Trusted records were viewed as essential to legitimize government
and preserve citizens' rights. The bureaucracy generated a fairly complete
record of what the government did, including voluminous chronicles of the
Civil War.
Future historians will have a harder time with Iraq war records, created in
several digital formats, some of which are already obsolete, said David
Bearman, president of Archives & Museum Informatics, a consulting firm in
Toronto.
In 20 years, pushed aside by waves of cheaper technology, "those records
will be very difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve," he said.
Digital files are also remarkably easy to destroy, by accident or design.
Just after the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, Air Force historian Eduard
Mark was assigned to write a history of the campaign. When he found the
right records, the officer in charge was seconds away from a single
keystroke that would have purged every daily "situation report" prepared
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, data crucial to understanding the conflict.
Soon after, Mark had an epiphany.
"I spend much of my life burrowing around in archives. Curiously enough, I
had never noticed that the offices I worked in were not generating much
archival material" or systematic records of any kind, he said.
Historically, the Pentagon created vast paper trails memorializing orders
for paper clips, D-day battle plans and heated policy debates. In the
1980s, computers replaced typing pools and file clerks. Carbon copies were
gradually replaced by perishable e-mails, cryptic PowerPoint slides and
transient websites that can be deleted instantly.
It's more than a loss to history.
"If officials leave no paper trail," Mark said, "how can they be held
responsible for their actions?"
At the same time, though, more information than ever is being created and
stored.
UC Berkeley scientists estimated in 2003 the world's annual output of
digital content stored on magnetic and optical media such as hard drives
and compact discs, not counting films, TV shows or websites. Their upper
estimate was equivalent to 500,000 times the print holdings of the Library
of Congress.
Yet a few generations from now, this period may be the most obscure since
the advent of the printing press, partly because of the structure of
digital files.
As a book, "War and Peace" is a literal representation of Leo Tolstoy's
words. Properly stored, it would be readable for hundreds of years. On a
CD, "War and Peace" is an encoded string of 0s and 1s. Without the right
descrambling hardware and software, the disk is best used as a coaster for
a cold drink. More and more, documents are produced only in digital form.
"We are capable of producing perfect copies, which confer a kind of
immortality on the things we create," said Rand Corp. archives expert Jeff
Rothenberg. Yet those copies require software "to make them real."
What can be done when old devices and software are eclipsed? Electrical
engineer Charles Mayn, 63, has spent his career answering that question.
He runs the preservation lab of the National Archives ? a museum of archaic
wire recorders, Dictaphones and wax cylinder players ? where movies and
audio files are transferred from obsolete to contemporary media.
Mayn's toughest challenge was 11,000 hours of audio recorded in Germany
after World War II. It contained thousands of unique interviews of
war-crime defendants and witnesses, such as assistants to the Nazi doctor
Josef Mengele, who conducted horrific experiments on death-camp inmates.
"Mengele was wanting to find out what happens to pilots if they fly too
high, the air's too thin, they come down too fast," Mayn said, referring to
one recorded interrogation. "So the technician helped with experiments on
prisoners in pressure chambers."
The interviews, which contain crucial details otherwise lost to history,
were recorded with a "Recordgraph," on 50-foot long, one-inch wide, nested
plastic belts. The device cut grooves into the plastic much like those on
an old vinyl record.
Not a single working Recordgraph machine could be found to play the interviews.
So Mayn built two from scratch.
Over a decade, the interviews were moved to quarter-inch audiotape. Kept
cool and dry, tape can last 50 years. But soon after the job was finished
in the mid-1990s, the last factory making quarter-inch tape closed its
doors and players are no longer made.
Today, everything the Archives rerecords is going digital. The old media
are dead.
Mayn said that like the Recordgraph and quarter-inch tape, he's among the
last of his breed. No one could build a replacement DVD player from
scratch, because there's no reasonable way to resurrect the software once
it is lost.
"Someone a few centuries out who found a [Recordgraph belt], can kind of
figure it out ? put a needle on it and get sound back," he said. "If they
find a CD, there's just nothing there."
The National Archives building in Washington is inscribed, "What is past is
prologue" ? a fitting aphorism for the agency that conserves the nation's
heritage.
The agency is spending $308 million on an electronic system regarded as the
first step to solve the digital archive problem. Yet a chief method the
agency uses, translating information onto more contemporary media, is like
a child's game of telephone. Every transfer loses shades of meaning.
The difficulty and cost of the process prompted WGBH, Boston's public
broadcasting television station, to hedge its bets. It purchased
6-foot-tall, 1960s-era video recorders and shrink-wrapped them in cold
storage to ensure a way to play back a unique collection of Boston Symphony
concerts from 1955 and an interview series hosted by Eleanor Roosevelt,
featuring such luminaries as then-Sen. John F. Kennedy.
Transferring data gets more difficult over time. New material emerges at an
ever-greater rate. Technical descriptions that allow old documents or
images to be viewed on new devices must be appended to each file. Such
descriptions gain complexity with each migration and soon outgrow the
original documents.
The limits to the Sisyphean migration strategy have stimulated several new
approaches.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico operates a website that
converts academic papers in physics and other fields into several digital
formats, increasing the likelihood that the information will be readable as
software standards evolve.
Scientists are also working on universal translators ? software designed to
operate on any computer and translate any software to the latest standard ?
and "emulators" to mimic old digital files for use on modern devices.
But those methods are also imperfect, another reason that the records of
modern society could become like the artifacts of a primitive culture ?
fascinating, but mysterious and full of gaps.
Jason Lanier, a computer scientist who coined the term "virtual reality,"
describes what's at stake this way:
"If you let forgetting and remembering happen arbitrarily, you're losing
part of yourself."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:17:36 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] NASA's new ORION vehicle hits first snag
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
NASA's hopes of manned flights before 2014 are dashed as Orion programme
hits first hold-up
http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/09/12/Navigation/177/208914/Orion+
programme+hits+first+hold-up+.html
By Rob Coppinger
NASA internal planning, official's comments and contractor expectations
suggest much touted goal of manned flights of new crew vehicle Orion before
2014 are unrealistic
NASA will fail to meet its goal of flying manned Orion missions before 2014,
as the first delay emerges for the new spaceship's development timetable
just a week after its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, was
selected.
NASA administrator Michael Griffin had wanted Orion's development
accelerated because the four-year gap between the Space Shuttle's 2010
retirement and the new spacecraft's planned 2014 operational debut was
deemed unacceptable. The prime contractor selection process was even
adjusted for changes introduced by NASA to accelerate Orion.
However NASA internal planning documents obtained by Flight International,
and recent comments by Constellation and Lockheed Martin programme
officials, reveal that this goal is unrealistic.
In an interview with Flight International last week, Lockheed Project Orion
business development manager Patrick McKenzie said that the "requirements
review (SRR) should slip into the first quarter of next year". NASA's plan
had been for Orion's SRR to occur in the fourth quarter of 2006.
While McKenzie was sure his company could deliver the Orion for a 2012
manned flight, at the 31 August contractor selection announcement Project
Orion office manager Caris Hatfeld said "a full and final" Ares I test was
unlikely before 2012 in order to complete the launcher's upper stage and its
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne J-2X engine. That 2012 test flight will not be
manned.
The leaked documents and corroborating NASA sources describe a timetable
where the Ares I-1 test would occur in 2009, followed by the 2012 flight,
which is now designated the Orbital Flight Test (OFT)-1. NASA had spoken of
Atmospheric Demonstration Flight Tests (ADFT), but this designation seems to
have been abandoned. The first manned flight is OFT-3, which is planned for
April, May or June 2014.
When asked about Hatfield's and Constellation programme manager Jeffrey
Hanley's ambiguous 31 August comments about testing, NASA said: "The test
programme is still in review, which is why [Hatfield and Hanley] were
circumspect. We need to see how the new prime contractor's detailed schedule
fits with rest of the programme test plan."
The leaked NASA documents have the system design review, which follows SRR,
by May 2007 the preliminary design review by March 2008, and the critical
design review in the second quarter of 2009.
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:56:51 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Rage over MySpace photo leads to arrest
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
September 14, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2006/09/14/rage_over_myspace_photo_l
eads_to_arrest/
MESA, Ariz. --A 22-year-old woman was arrested after authorities say she
tried to hire someone to kill another woman whose photo appeared on her
boyfriend's MySpace.com Web page.
Heather Michelle Kane was booked Tuesday for investigation of conspiracy to
commit murder, Mesa Detective Jerry Gissel said.
She was arrested after she met an undercover Mesa police detective at a
grocery store, gave the officer $400 and offered to pay an additional $100
once the woman had been killed, according to court records.
The records say Kane gave the undercover officer photographs taken from her
boyfriend's social networking Web page of the woman she wanted killed. She
also requested a photo of the woman's dead body.
It wasn't clear if the boyfriend and the targeted woman were romantically
involved, Gissel said.
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:28:29 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Air Ameerica denies bankruptcy rumors
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
http://www.nypost.com/business/whiff_of_bankruptcy_jolts_air_america_busines
s_john_mainelli.htm
September 14, 2006 -- All-liberal, all-the-time Air America is denying
intense rumors that the ratings-challenged radio network will declare
bankruptcy this week and attempt to reorganize to stay on the air for the
November elections.
A high-level source told The Post that Rob Glaser, the Real Networks founder
who rescued the 2-year-old network from its first financial crisis, "walked
away last week" and took his moneybags with him.
Earlier this week, as first reported in The Post, Air America laid off six
people and shuffled its on-air lineup - including deleting Jerry Springer
and returning him to independent syndication.
Radio Equalizer, a blog that closely monitors Air America, claims the lefty
net hasn't been able to pay its Associated Press bill and that staffers
"have been bracing for the worst possible news."
Late yesterday, Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn denied rumors of doom.
"If Air America had filed for bankruptcy every time someone rumored it to be
doing so, we would have ceased to exist long ago," Horn told The Post. "No
decision has been taken to make any filing of any kind."
Air America's executive suite has been a hotbed of intrigue with a revolving
door ever since the New York-based home of Al Franken and other lefties
launched as an "antidote" to conservative talk radio in April 2004.
Franken called the first chairman, Evan Cohen, a "crook" after a promised
$30 million infusion never materialized and a loan scandal involving a Bronx
charity last summer.
More recently, record exec Danny Goldberg abandoned ship.
Air America has about 87 affiliates nationwide. Earlier this month, the
network was evicted from flagship WLIB and moved to a station with a weaker
signal, WWRL (1600 AM).
Gregory S. Williams
AOL?IC/SAP Help Desk
865-425-4167
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:30:09 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Air America Acknowledges Some Layoffs
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Air America Acknowledges Some Layoffs
Sep 14 1:20 PM US/Eastern
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/14/D8K4OUL80.html
By LARRY McSHANE
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK
Financially strapped Air America Radio acknowledged Thursday, after star
commentator Al Franken said publicly that his paycheck had stopped coming,
that it had suffered a small number of layoffs but insisted there were no
plans for the liberal talk show network to declare bankruptcy.
"If Air America had filed for bankruptcy every time someone rumored it to be
doing so, we would have ceased to exist long ago," said network spokeswoman
Jaime Horn in a statement. "It may be frustrating to some that it hasn't
happened."
Horn, without getting specific, said there were "a handful of layoffs" that
followed a move of the network's New York outlet from WLIB-AM to WWRL-AM, a
station with a less powerful signal. The network launched in March 2004.
Franken, broadcasting Thursday from New York, said he was aware of the
bankruptcy rumors. "We may or may not, that's what I'm hearing," Franken
said at the start of his noon broadcast. But he assured listeners that the
financial problems wouldn't silence the network.
"Let me say one thing, if we do go into bankruptcy: I've flown on United
(Airlines)," he said. "They went into bankruptcy."
United operated for more than three years before it came out of bankruptcy
last February.
Franken, in a recent interview, said the network was suffering from "a cash
flow problem."
"No cash has been flowing to me," Franken, who makes a reported $2 million a
year, told The New York Sun. "That's the first inkling I got of a cash flow
problem."
Horn said no decision was made on any filing, and that the network was
unsure about the source of the bankruptcy rumors. Franken said it was last
week when he discovered that his paychecks had stopped.
The network has suffered from financial woes during its 2 1/2 years on the
air, as reflected in Horn's statement about past bankruptcy rumors. Last
year, the network became involved in a financial scandal when authorities
said that $875,000 from a community center largely financed by government
grants and contracts wound up going to Air America.
The investigation into that case was continuing.
Air America co-founder Evan Cohen was a development director at the Gloria
Wise Boys & Girls Club at the same time he was launching the network. His
connection to Air America ended in May 2004 amid questions about the
network's finances.
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:33:17 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Air America Stiffs Al Franken
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2006/09/air-america-stiffs-franken.php
THAT'S AL, FOLKS Franken wants a paycheck
Is Air America Radio going belly up? The troubled left-leaning network is
dismissing yesterday's report by Think Progress that it plans to file for
bankruptcy on Friday. But you know things must be bad when even your top
star can't get paid.
"I don't know if that's true or not," Al Franken told Radar late Wednesday,
when asked about the bankruptcy report. "We do know that there have been
cash-flow problems. I haven't been paid in a while. Like, there's no cash
flowing to me."
It's not the first time Franken has gone without a salary. Air America ran
out of money promptly after it launched in 2004, after disgraced former
chairman Evan Cohen inflated the amount of money he had raised to fund the
network. The debacle nearly killed the network in its infancy, and led to a
legendary incident in which Cohen reportedly sent an executive to Franken's
apartment to hand-deliver an envelope purportedly containing all of his back
pay. It was empty.
Since then, Air America has seen a litany of troubles, executive departures,
talent shuffles, and lawsuits. Six months ago, the network was booted from
its flagship station in New York City, WLIB, to a much weaker signal that
doesn't cover the entire city, and it laid off five staffers on September
11, according to the New York Post.
Franken isn't the only person that Air America is in hock to. Last year, the
network settled a multi-million-dollar lawsuit from Multicultural
Broadcasting, the owner of its Chicago and Los Angeles stations, for its
failure to pay for rented airtime. But according to Multicultural's
attorney, Randy Mastro, the network still hasn't paid up. "It involved a
structured settlement over time," Mastro says. "There is additional money
owed. If it's true [that they're filing for bankruptcy], we'll have to do
something about that."
And then there's the matter of the $875,000 the network owes to the Gloria
Wise Boys and Girls Club. As has been extensively covered on right-wing
blogs, Cohen convinced the nonprofit club-he sat on the board-to OK a
massive interest-free loan to keep the network afloat in its early days.
When news of the arrangement broke-liberal radio net steals from poor
kids!-Air America agreed to repay the loan in full, and the New York City
Department of Investigation started looking into the propriety of the
transaction.
Air America says the money is in an escrow account controlled by its
lawyers, who have been instructed by the DOI to wait until their
investigation is complete before transferring it back to the Boys and Girls
Club. But neither Jack Kiley, an attorney for the Boys and Girls Club, nor
Emily Gest, a spokeswoman for the DOI, could confirm that the escrow account
actually exists. Asked whether she was certain that Air America had indeed
deposited the funds in an escrow account, Gest would only say, "The
Department of Investigation expects Air America to uphold its commitments to
repay the victims of this scheme." Kiley says that a small portion of the
loan has been repaid, and he expects that the remainder is forthcoming.
Janeane Garofalo, who quit her job as co-host of the network's evening show
Majority Report in July, says her paychecks had been arriving on-time, and
that her departure had nothing to do with the network's finances. But she
didn't have kind words for the "radio suits"-guys like interim CEO Jim
Wiggett, network president Gary Krantz, and president of programming Jon
Sinton-who have been running the place into the ground.
"They've been making bad decisions since the day I got there," Garofalo
says. The network's staff, Garofalo says, is tireless and committed to the
cause of progressive radio. "And then you have a handful of business people
with no politics whatsoever. I can't fathom the decisions they make."
Tom Embrescia, a former radio entrepreneur and Air America board member,
says no specific bankruptcy proposals have been presented to the board. But
he's circumspect about his faith in the current management. "They're losing
money," he says. "That's common knowledge. I think all along they've had
some questions about what they're doing. They're always talking about
raising more money, and there's always been times when [chairman of the
board and Real Networks founder] Rob Glaser has come in to save the day." As
for why Air America can't seem to turn a profit, Embrescia says it may have
been a mistake to launch an entire left-wing talk radio network in one shot.
"Maybe it should have been one or two programs," he says.
Norman Wain, a Cleveland-based former radio executive and investor in Air
America, says he hadn't heard about any financial difficulties. "I know
nothing about it," he says. "They don't communicate with investors very
well. They only come to us when they're looking for more money." The last
time that happened, he says, was "three or four months ago."
If bankruptcy is imminent, the timing couldn't be worse for Franken: His new
movie, Al Franken: God Spoke, opens today in New York. In a statement, an
Air America spokeswoman said "no decision has been taken to make any filing
of any kind."
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:36:00 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Analyst predicts plunge in gas prices
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Analyst predicts plunge in gas prices
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003257679_oilconsu
mers14.html
By Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The recent sharp drop in the global price of crude oil could
mark the start of a massive sell-off that returns gasoline prices to lows
not seen since the late 1990s - perhaps as low as $1.15 a gallon.
"All the hurricane flags are flying" in oil markets, said Philip Verleger, a
noted energy consultant who was a lone voice several years ago in warning
that oil prices would soar. Now, he says, they appear to be poised for a
dramatic plunge.
Crude-oil prices have fallen about $14, or roughly 17 percent, from their
July 14 peak of $78.40. After falling seven straight days, they rose
slightly Wednesday in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, to
$63.97, partly in reaction to a government report showing fuel inventories a
bit lower than expected. But the overall price drop is expected to continue,
and prices could fall much more in the weeks and months ahead.
Here's why:
For most of the past two years, oil prices have risen because the world's
oil producers have struggled to keep pace with growing demand, particularly
from China and India. Spare oil-production capacity grew so tight that
market players feared that any disruption to oil production could create
shortages.
Fear of disruption focused on fighting in Nigeria, escalating tensions over
Iran's nuclear program, violence between Israel and Lebanon that might
spread to oil-producing neighbors, and the prospect that hurricanes might
topple oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil traders bet that such worrisome developments would drive up the future
price of oil. Oil is traded in contracts for future delivery, and companies
that take physical delivery of oil are just a small part of total trading.
Large pension and commodities funds are the big traders and they're seeking
profits. They've sunk $105 billion or more into oil futures in recent years,
according to Verleger. Their bets that oil prices would rise in the future
bid up the price of oil.
That, in turn, led users of oil to create stockpiles as cushions against
supply disruptions and even higher future prices. Now inventories of oil are
approaching 1990 levels.
But many of the conditions that drove investors to bid up oil prices are
ebbing. Tensions over Israel, Lebanon and Nigeria are easing. The hurricane
season has presented no threat so far to the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. peak
summer driving season is over, so gasoline demand is falling.
With fear of supply disruptions ebbing, oil prices began sliding. With oil
inventories high, refiners that turn oil into gasoline are expected to cut
production. As refiners cut production, oil companies increasingly risk
getting stuck with excess oil supplies. There's already anecdotal evidence
of oil companies chartering tankers to store excess oil.
All this is turning financial markets increasingly bearish on oil.
"If we continue to build inventories, and if we have a warm winter like we
had last winter, you could see a large fall in the price of oil," said Gary
Pokoik, who manages Hedge Ventures Energy in Los Angeles, an energy hedge
fund. "I think there is still a lot of risk in the market."
As it stands now, the recent oil-price slump has brought the national
average for a gallon of unleaded gasoline down to $2.59, according to the
AAA motor club. In the Seattle area, prices per gallon have fallen to $2.856
currently from $3.071 a month ago, a decline of 7 percent, according to AAA.
Should oil traders fear that this downward price spiral will get worse and
run for the exits by selling off their futures contracts, Verleger said,
it's not unthinkable that oil prices could return to $15 or less a barrel,
at least temporarily. That could mean gasoline prices as low as $1.15 per
gallon.
Other experts won't guess at a floor price, but they agree that a race to
the bottom could break out.
"The market may test levels here that are too low to be sustained," said
Clay Seigle, an analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a
consultancy in Boston.
On Monday, the oil-producing cartel OPEC hinted that if prices fall
precipitously, OPEC members would cut production to lift them. But that
would take time.
"That takes six to nine months. If we don't have a really cold winter here
[creating a demand for oil], prices will fall. Literally, you don't know
where the floor is," Verleger said. "In a market like this, if things start
falling ... prices could take you back to the 1999 levels. It has nothing to
do with production."
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 10
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:20:13 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Microsoft Introduces the Zune
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Microsoft Introduces the Zune
News : Zune, posted 15-SEP-2006 06:06
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=6657
Microsoft Introduces the Zune Microsoft Corp. has unveiled details of the
first products to be released under its Zune brand. These products are
designed around sharing, discovery and community. The companys says the Zune
experience centers around connection, connection to personal library,
connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other
devices.
Available this holiday season in the United States, Zune includes a 30GB
digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service and a foundation
for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music.
The Zune device features wireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a
bright, 3-inch screen that allows users to not only play music, pictures and
video, but also to customize the experience with personal pictures or
themes.
Initially Zune will come in three colors: black, brown and white.
Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneously share full-length
sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures
with friends between Zune devices. Users will be able to listen to the full
track of any received song up to three times over three days. If the user
then wants to buy a song, it can be done right from the device and purchased
from the Zune Marketplace.
The platform provides means to users to import existing music, pictures and
videos in many popular formats and browse songs on Zune Marketplace, where
tracks can be purchased individually or through a Zune Pass subscription
that allows the download of as many songs as wanted for a flat fee.
To get started with music and videos out of the box, every Zune device is
preloaded with content from record labels such as DTS, EMI Music's
Astralwerks Records and Virgin Records, Ninja Tune, Playlouderecordings,
Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, and V2/Artemis Records.
Three accessory packs help Zune users enjoy their music where they want to,
at home or on the road. The packs and the individual accessories, all
designed exclusively for Zune, will be available at launch:
# The Zune Car Pack includes everything needed to hit the road with a Zune
device, such as the built-in FM tuner with AutoSeek and the Zune Car
Charger.
# The Zune Home A/V Pack integrates Zune with the TV and music speakers:
Zune AV Output Cable, Zune Dock, Zune Sync Cable, Zune AC Adapter and the
Zune Wireless Remote for Zune Dock.
# Zune Travel Pack is a set of five products designed to keep friends and
family entertained on the road: Zune Premium Earphones, Zune Dual Connect
Remote, Zune Gear Bag, Zune Sync Cable and the Zune AC Adapter.
Microsoft is also working with accessory manufacturers Altec Lansing, Belkin
Corp., Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO), Dual Electronics, Griffin
Technology, Harman Kardon and JBL, Integrated Mobile Electronics, Jamo
International, Klipsch Audio Technologies, Logitech, Monster Cable Products
Inc., Speck, Targus Group International Inc. and VAF Research
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 11
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:21:44 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Space station gets new set of solar energy panels
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Space station gets new set of solar energy panels
By Jeff Franks
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006
-09-14T133554Z_01_B405032_RTRUKOC_0_US-SPACE-SHUTTLE.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-sc
ienceNews-2&rpc=92
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Two new solar energy arrays on the International Space
Station unfolded smoothly on Thursday to complete the main task of a shuttle
mission to restart construction of the space outpost.
The panels looked like golden wings as they stretched out to their full
240-foot length (73-meter) to reflect the sunlight they will convert into
additional electricity for the station.
"Big day for Space Station. We confirm the solar array is also fully
deployed," said shuttle communicator Pam Melroy from Mission Control in
Houston.
"The team obviously did a great job. We're very happy to get the array out
today," Atlantis commander Brent Jett radioed back.
The arrays, folded up like an accordion for transport from Earth by the
shuttle, were extended slowly to avoid problems that occurred when the first
solar arrays were added to the station in 2000.
On that mission, one of the panels got stuck as it unfolded and required
spacewalking astronauts to go out and get it moving.
This time, NASA released the panels halfway, then let them sit in the sun
for 30 minutes to loosen up before unfurling them to their full length.
Deployment was delayed briefly by a software problem that initially caused a
rotary joint that will move the arrays with the sun to not respond to
commands from Mission Control.
The solar panels, part of a 17 1/2-tonne truss structure, delivered to the
station on Monday by Atlantis, are critical because they will double the
electricity supply on the station as it is expanded over the next four
years.
They will not be activated until some modifications are made to the space
station on the next shuttle flight in December.
Eventually, two more solar arrays will be added to power the outpost.
NASA plans 14 more shuttle flights to complete the half-finished, $100
billion station before the shuttle program is shut down in 2010.
Space station construction came to a halt when NASA grounded the shuttle
fleet after the 2003 Columbia disaster.
After more than $1 billion in safety upgrades and two test flights, the
agency launched Atlantis on Saturday on its mission to resume station
assembly.
Atlantis astronauts have performed two spacewalks to prepare the solar array
for deployment and will do another on Friday for other tasks. The shuttle is
scheduled to return to Earth on Wednesday.
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Message: 12
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:23:28 -0700
From: "Williams, Gregory S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] iTunes 7 DRM Already Cracked
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Topic: News
http://blog.wired.com/music/index.blog?entry_id=1556053
It's only been a day since Apple updated iTunes to version 7, but the folks
over at the Hymn project have already posted a new version of a program that
can be used to remove the DRM from songs purchased from it. It's an updated
version of the recent release that worked with iTunes 6.
I confirmed that the new 2.3 version of QTFairUse6 works fine for converting
one iTunes 7 song at a time, although apparently the function for batch
converting an entire library of purchased songs doesn't work. In order to
convert a single song, you'd just drag it from your iTunes Music folder onto
the QTFairUse6.exe file and enter "Y" in the DOS command line interface that
pops up.
As the conversion takes place, iTunes plays the song in
much-faster-than-realtime (it takes 11 seconds to convert a 3-minute song).
The converted song is an AAC file with the same .M4A extension it had
before, located in the same folder as the original song.
It must be said, from time to time, that the reason for removing DRM from
songs is to enable you to make reasonable/fair/call it what you will use of
content you bought. This includes everything from remixing a song for
non-commercial use to playing it on an MP3 player that's not an iPod (your
player will need AAC support for that, or else you can convert the
unprotected AACs to MP3s using the handy dbPowerAmp Music Converter).
Gregory S. Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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End of Medianews Digest, Vol 31, Issue 1
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