Hey there! Hi there! Ho there!

What the hell - it’s the Year Of The Rat.

It’s a Leap Year.

It’s Friday.

It’s Round-Up Day!

There won’t be much commentary on this disparate bunch of crap I’m about to lay on you - just a big ass whack of links to stories that caught my attention and which have been languishing in my To Do folder for way too fucking long but should still be worth a look.

Today’s honorary Mouse Du Jour is Jesus - lighting the way for 2000 years!

Okay, let’s go:

• RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue - This just in: the recording industry is run by a bunch of crooks.

• Susan Crawford Nails It - when she distills the Net Neutrality debate thusly:

The witnesses keep talking about “services” - but these aren’t services, this is just access, transport, commodity roads on which unimaginable complexity can flourish. These gatekeepers have every interest in maintaining scarcity, when we could have abundance - with an injection of leadership, national planning, and will. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

• Lawrence Lessig Decides Not To Run For Congress - which is wise - and also a shame, since he would have been great; but, as he describes so eloquently in his video posting, he can acheive far greater things aoutside the sphere of power. Now if Ralph Nader could just see things the same way. Message to Ralph: “Sit down and STFU.”

• WikiLeaks Censored By U.S. Courts - Land Of The Free my frozen arse. The good news is the judge is reviewing his own decision (after much public outcry) suggesting he may have erred in his decision to order WikiLeaks wiped off the face of the internet just because a money-laundering Cayman bank told him to. “Gee whiz, Yer Honor - ya think?” Fortunately, the internet (aka the beast with no head) took up the slack and most people were still able to access the growing archive of dirty political and corporate laundry being assembled for the world to see.

• Bush Administration Criminals Run Amok - no big news here - they’re been at it for almost 8 whole years now. The Muck Raker is a great site to help keep track of their growing litany of crimes from petty embezzlement to false imprisonment, contempt of Congress, war crimes, torture, rape, sexual misconduct, fraud, theft, drug running, illegal surveillance, destruction of evidence, kidnapping and just generally being a bunch of crazy-ass fascist bugfuck demented thugs. Those who know me know I don’t hold out much hope for my friends south of the border. I will count them lucky indeed if they even ever see another election - rigged or not.

• Ars Technica continues to have great coverage of the stories concerning (among many other things) Internet Freedom Of Speech, the Copyfight and Net Neutrality. Stuff like how the Domestic Surveillance scandal in the U.S. continues to boil along - and how ComCast Fucked Around with the FCC hearings into their continuing practices of blocking P2P and other internet traffic.

• David Byrne and Thom Yorke On The Real Value Of Music - It’s an interview in Wired that is still relevant as an increasing number of artists step away from the corporate control of their industry and instead reach out to do their business directly with their audience.

We pause in our litany of head shaking nonsense to bring you this message:

Wow - okay - where were we?

• How Pirates Will Change The Entertainment Industry - This is a really great article from TorrentFreak - if you are even remotely involved in the entertainment industry you should consider this as required reading.

• Canadian Broadcasters & Net Providers Join Backlash Against Proposed DMCA - Strange bedfellows indeed but certainly indicative of just how totally fucked up Industry Minister Jim Chickenshit Prentice’s Copyright Reform Bill truly is. The document itself is laughable - and seethingly dangerous. Harper’s Conservative government’s actions in handling this whole thing have been fraught with pathetic bungling and obvious catering to the whims of the Neo-Con administration in the U.S. which seems, more and more, to be calling the shots behind the closed doors of the office of the Prime Minister. What a bunch of greasy monkeys.

• Alchemist Authour Pirates His Own Books - TorrentFreak reports on how Paulo Coelho, the best-selling author of “The Alchemist”, is using BitTorrent and other filesharing networks as a way to promote his books. His publishers weren’t too keen on giving away free copies of his books, so he’s taken matters into his own hands. This is the cultural revolution at its best - when common sense and the will of the artist supercede the demands and whining of industry.

• How Internet Censorship Works - A quick and easy primer on all the issues that - if ignored - will come back to haunt, bite and otherwise butt fuck all of us. Consider yourself warned.

• Piracy, Morals and the Need For Change - TorrentFreak does it again with a great article examining the moral dilemma our technological advancements are now presenting us. Who is right? Who will hold sway? The answers will define who we become as human beings in this new century.

• A Brave New World: The Music Biz At The Dawn Of 2008 - More along this continuing theme of industry change, moral dilemmas, cultural renewal and dirt stupid corporate fat cats. Ars Technica presents this extraordinary article that defines where we’ve been and where we are going.

• RIAA Reminds Me Of The Mafia - That from Jello Biafra, lead singer for the Dead Kennedys and copyright activist in a post from (wait for it) TorrentFreak. No surprise there, and not just ‘cuz of the past history of the Music Corporation of America - now known as Universal.

• Weinsteins Fuck With The Force - I posted earlier on the upcoming film FanBoys and how it made me get all geeky inside with anticipation. The Weinsteins, already notorious for screwing around with the final edits of the films they fund, haver taken it upon themselves to try and save FanBoys prior to its release. The uproar from the real-life Fan Boys & Girls has been extraordinarily fun to behold as they pop-culture Jedi’s charge forward to bitch slap the brothers into giving them the film they want. Klaatu Barada Nicto, kids.

• Anything By Michael Geist - How’s that for an overly broad link recommendation? He’s been on a roll and continues to provide much needed insight and clarity to the issues of copyright in Canada; including fun stuff like the Conservatives being accused of copyright infringement. Geist has been named one of the recipients of the 2008 Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Awards.

And finally - just to show I’m not all about depressing politics and ranting at greedy corporate fucktards - here’s the latest Iron Man trailer.

Robert Downey Jr. rocks - pure and simple.

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That’s it for now - and I’ve only dumped a third of what was in my folder. So much to do - so little time - so few brain cells.

Happy Leap Year and Kung Hei Fat Choi.

Cheers.