UPDATE: He signed it. We done been terminated.

Click images to embiggen.

Later that day…

The key — the National Association of Broadcasters has rolled over:

The real deciding factor came when Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) met with members of the NAB. They told him that they feared their Web competitors would get a deal done first. Under the terms of the legislation, SoundExchange, the body that collects royalties and is part of the Recording Industry Association of America, has until Dec. 15 to negotiate a new rate. The NAB apparently was worried that the deadline didn’t give the organization enough time to strike its own royalty agreement.

“Berman said ‘Fine, we’ll extend the date until Feb. 15, which gives you two more months to talk,'” said one music-industry source with knowledge of the discussions. “There isn’t anything in the act that prevents traditional broadcasters from reaching their own royalty rate.”

That did the trick, according to the source. Dennis Wharton, an NAB spokesman confirmed Saturday night that the NAB met with Berman and that the deadline was extended. He said the trade organization has dropped its opposition in both houses of Congress.

You can listen to netZoo Internet Radio station — WOOZradio commercial free (for a small monthly fee that cuts into our royalty payments) by clicking here. Or listen w/ commercials for free.

UPDATE JUNE 6: Finally got thru to Experian (the number for disputes that worked was 1 800 208 9232) and cleared 21 accounts from my credit report that weren’t mine as well as at least a dozen addresses where I never lived. The woman on the phone confirmed that “this happens all the time.” These computers are made by humans, she said. Sounds like you really need some new computers, or an overhaul of your IT staff, I rebutted.

UPDATE: I discovered that indeed one Andrea Lavelle does work at Antioch Tire in Antioch, IL — at the very address listed on MY Experian credit report. Thanks to some Google searching and a call to my purported identity thief’s workplace, I know when she’ll be in the office — but I don’t know who to send (or if there might be a third party involved whose hijacking both of our identities). Guess I’ll call the FTC in the morning.

Upon calling FreeCreditReport.com customer care I was instructed to file a dispute on the website, however, when disputing the first thing listed (the address) i was told that their online disputing system is currently unavailable. I then asked, no, demanded to know why two unknown addresses as well as several assets that aren’t mine are listed on this record which is supposedly based on my social security number. Fill out this form is all I was told. And they will e-mail you. Well the second form didn’t get me anywhere as you can see from the error message below.

So, HOW can I find out what’s up with this BS on my credit report? Is this a bug on Experian’s end (owner of FreeCreditReport.com and issuer of my inaccurate credit report) or has someone who goes by Andrea Lavelle been piggybacking on my credit for better and/or worse? For the record, my credit score according this report is fine, so I have yet to be adversely affected by this mystery (as far as I know).

Has anyone else had issues like this with Experian or other credit history farmers? I can’t find any info about the addresses or identities attached to my profile either (see images below)… To be continued…

UPDATES: Checked out fine on Equifax. Not available via TransUnion online.

Experian:

TransUnion:

Finally, here is a GMap w/ Streetview of the location of the vast property attributed to my credit report as a 15-year real estate loan via Bank of America with a $2,617 monthly mortgage payment.

Also check out the most recent (I think) Creative Commons vid on CC and Commerce from November 2007:

UPDATE: It is still contested whether or not these votes (such as mine, and two of my three colleagues who also voted Democratic on a Nonpartisan ballot) will be disqualified. Obama campaign lawyer Stephen Kaufman defines two issues decline-to-state voters are experiencing today, one statewide and one only in LA County. CA campaign chair Buffy Wicks just sent out an URGENT UPDATE, the Clinton campaign has still said nothing beyond: “False reports about voting problems in LA are being drudged up – Everything is going smoothly in LA.”

Despite all the preparation I did before going down the street to Elysian Park Elementary to vote this morning I missed something HUGE. Perhaps I should have read my literature closer, or at least this blog post:

Thousands of non-partisan voters’ ballots in Democratic Primary could go uncounted if voters fail to follow instructions carefully.

As a registered decline-to-state voter, I was aware that I could choose either a Democratic or American Independent ballot. I had no idea, however, that I would be handed a punch card that said only “non-partisan.” Furthermore, at the top of the card there apparently was an additional and crucial bubble on it, signifying whether the non-partisan was voting for the American Independent candidate or one of the Democratic candidates. City officials are getting the word out to citizens now, but it’s a little to late. This extra bubble is ONLY for DTS voters in Los Angeles County.

This is only one of my concerns. Despite SoS Debra Bowen doing the right thing and recalling all electronic voting machines until they’re proven reliable, the Inkavote machine used to verify and count my ballot was apparently broken! As I went to slip my punch card in, the poll worker told me, “it’s broken, just give it to me and I’ll put it in the box myself later.” What?!? You’ve got 6 months to fix this, Bowen.

OK. That’s my Super Tuesday story for now. I hope you can all make it down to Seven Grand later to watch the returns and celebrate my birthday! Let’s party.

The news in the announcement is worth celebrating and well worth the wait: a huge, free, digital archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754!

But what I really like is the last paragraph, explaining how open-source archives circa 2007 are taking the extra step to convert two-dimensional, law record formatted content into the online sphere:

Public.Resource.Org intends to perform an initial transformation on the federal case law archive obtained from Fastcase using open source “star” mapping software, which will allow the insertion of markers that will approximate page breaks based on user-furnished parameters such as page size, margins, and fonts. “Wiki” technology will be used to allow the public to move around these “star” markers, as well as add summaries, classifications, keywords, alternate numbering systems for citation purposes, and ratings or “diggs” on opinions.

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University provides this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms.

Also, LA Weekly reporter Daniel Hernandez blogs in detail about the scene at his blog.

Listen to voices of reporters, observers, and organizers describe the melee here.

KPCC on the scene reports here.

Why did the police in riot gear allegedly not have badges visible? Why did they push the few derelict anarchists throwing “missiles” into the peaceful, all-ages crowd in the park instead of isolating them? How are they possibly trained to believe they can get away with intimidating the press for filming and reporting on the scene by firing rubber bullets indiscriminately?

photo by Sarah Hayes, used with permission.

Wolf was jailed for longer than any journalist in U.S. history for protecting source material requested by the feds. Wolf refused to turn over video he shot of a chaotic 2005 San Francisco street protest during the G-8 summit. The courts issued him a subpoena after parts of the video (originally posted at IndyBay) were picked up by the mainstream media.

After posting the full, unedited video on his Web site (also embedded below), the prosecution announced that Wolf had complied with the terms of the grand jury subpoena, and the judge approved his release.

“Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,’ he said as he left the prison. “Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.’

In his post accompanying the video (which he uploaded to Blip.tv), Wolf wrote:

During the course of this saga I have repeatedly offered to allow a judge to be the arbiter over whether or not my video material has any evidentiary value. Today, you the public have the opportunity to be the judge and I am confident you will see, as I do, that there is nothing of value in this unpublished footage.

Click To Play

There’s an excellent segment explaining why this act requires White House officials to communicate via their official e-mail addresses and how much of the activity behind the Gonzales / AG firings scandal took place on RNC servers, where the data transmitted could be encrypted, deleted, and stay out of the public eye. You can click here and listen to the segement on this from this weekend’s On the Media:

Additionally, we now know that the White House has added five years of delay into the process of releasing presidential records (since 2001) if for nothing else than to cover their asses.

Further investigation of this issue points to conspiratorial — but heavily documented — accusations that Karl Rove is the kingpin of covert (and illegal) e-mail communications in concert with a Republicans-trusted server farm based in Tennessee.

UPDATE: Coptix is now taking credit for manufacturing the digitally altered photo referred to below.

This post at CorrenteWire explains best how a recent photo of Rove with a Coptix folder unravels into a long paper trail of activity involving the nameserver gwb43.com and Rove (he privatized his e-mail there). This method helps him, and other White House staffers, like his ex-assistant Susan Ralston, feel confident that they will not be held liable as they can destroy any evidence that might lead to a subpoena. But, alas, might the circumvention of white house communication policies alone be enough to serve a subpoena. Furthermore, the same company, Coptix, also SmartTech, is said to have been involved with filtering election results through their servers.

OK, now — I know it’s April Fool’s Day and this sounds incredibly tin-foiled-hatty as I’ve tried to relay it, but listen to the short radio piece and read the Corrente piece (and comments)…. Of course, this isn’t the first (or last) time BushCo will be caught breaking laws, but…

Finally, in another careless and potentially fatal blow (the Department of Homeland Security seems to be able to do whatever it wants):

“At an ICANN meeting in Lisbon, the US Department of Homeland Security made it clear that it has requested the master key for the DNS root zone. The key will play an important role in the new DNSSec security extension, because it will make spoofing IP-addresses impossible. By forcing the IANA to hand out a copy of the master key, the US government will be the only institution that is able to spoof IP addresses and be able to break into computers connected to the Internet without much effort. There’s a further complication, of course, because even ‘if the IANA retains the key … the US government still reserves the right to oversee ICANN/IANA. If the keys are then handed over to ICANN/IANA, there would be even less of an incentive [for the U.S.] to give up this role as a monitor. As a result, the DHS’s demands will probably only heat up the debate about US dominance of the control of Internet resources.'”

read the article DHS Wants Master Key for DNS (via slashdot).