Idiots. Democrats caved and passed a full spending bill without any deadlines for withdrawal. I know that there never would have been enough votes to overturn Bush’s inevitable veto, but they could have put up a fight that would have cost Bush dearly and weakened his hand. Instead, they just folded. Idiots.

Crooks and Idiots. The ever-greedy RIAA is now seeing about charging public radio to play songs. Talk about money-grubbig, not to mention biting the hand that feeds you. They got an artist to agree with them, saying, “They’ve gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it’s time to pay up.”

The “idiot” part? Radio is not a free-play giveaway that radio stations have greedily stolen over the years. Instead, it is essentially a massive and completely free advertising campaign for the record labels. How the hell do you think people find out what kind of music they want to buy? They hear the music someplace free, and then they want to own it. (Which is why pirated music similarly boosts music sales.) The relationship between radio stations and music labels is symbiotic. In fact, in the past, music labels have paid off radio stations to play their tunes more than other labels’ music.

Not to mention that public radio is probably i worse shape than the music labels right now, competing with now only pay radio but also the ever-expanding Internet with its explosion of podcasting and whatnot.

Asking public radio to pay for playing music is like me putting an ad in a money-strapped newspaper and demanding that they pay me for it. Idiots.

Damn. If rumors are correct, Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini. If they do that, I may lose my only chance to switch my school from Windows to Mac in a year or two–unless Apple comes out with another easy-to-be-a-switcher machine.

Hot Damn. Is George Lucas going to announce a seventh Star Wars movie on the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars movie tomorrow? (Today in Japan, but we’re from the future.) Maybe, maybe not. But Lucas has talked about a Star Wars movie or two in order to kick-start a TV series… and let’s face it, almost any Star Wars movie will likely bring in so much money at the box office that Lucas would have to be an idiot not to go that route, as long as he’s making a 2-hour Star Wars film.