SoundExchange jacking up fees in no way helps the artists, and demonstrably hurts them. When an internet radio station pays royalties to BMI/ASCAP, like any FM station pays, those go to the artist. These SoundExchange fees go not to the artist, but to the labels - the same people who get 90% of the revenue from every CD sold. This is a fee FM radio doesn't have to pay - internet radio is singled out for this one.

Even assuming any internet station could afford to stay on the air with these new fees, the money generated isn't putting gas in Deerhoof's tour van; it's making David Geffen's enormous wallet just a tiny bit fatter. But by basically destroying internet radio in the U.S., it's denying Deerhoof exposure to an audience - people who might hear their music on the radio and then pay money to go seem them perform. The live show is where artists, big and small, make money. Royalties are only a real revenue stream if you make it on to Clear Channel's tiny playlists, and album sales? Please. The labels have screwed over the artists so badly most bands with a million-selling album lose money on the deal. (do a web search for "Steve Albini" and "already be this fucked" - Steve did all the math on this one a few years ago.)

So, as a few people have pointed out, the net effect of all this will simply be to destroy internet radio in the U.S., and push it overseas. Hell, if Halliburton can run their operations from Dubai and the Caymans, why shouldn't webcasters do the same?

There's a guy who's smarter than you (at least about baseball - and no disrespect, he just knows all) and makes more money than you, King - Joe Morgan, of the Big Red Machine. He did an interview with SI a few years back that convinced me that, in an ideal world, he'd be commissioner and Bud Selig would just be a mediocre owner of a mediocre franchise.

Morgan pointed out how much MLB has invested in recruiting overseas players, particularly in the Carribean and Latin America, and asked why the league doesn't do the same thing in the US. Because it's not just black kids who aren't playing baseball - it's American kids who aren't into baseball the way their grandparents' generation was. Football's king, followed by basketball, followed by a big gap.

Baseball spends a ton of money setting up training centers, amateur leagues, recruitment system, etc., in places like the Dominican Republic. Why can't they do the same thing in Detroit? It's cheaper to fly the scouts back and forth, and even the kids who only play for a year or two are more likely to spend a day at the ballpark, or watching a game on TV even, than a kid who never put on a glove. Baseball doesn't just need to go back to recruiting American players; they need to recruit an American audience. And getting more African-Americans into the game is just a part of that (and not an unimportant one, but not the whole story).

This isn't a response to the article so much as "anonymous'" bullshit:

>This tragedy is not about "guns" and "gun control." It's about a sick kid who didn't get the help he needed.

No, it's about both. There are sick kids in every country in the world. There aren't gun rampages in other industrialized nations because they don't leave guns just lying around for any idiot to pick up and use. Yes, Cho could have built a bomb, but bombs are hard to make and he could have just as easily blown himself up in the process. Plus, you need to secure materials to build a bomb, which arouses suspicion, which leads to him getting caught. He could have poisoned the cafeteria food, but he'd have to do so right under the noses of the cafeteria workers - every method you described is far more difficult to commit murder with than just pulling out a gun and unloading. Which is why you don't hear about some psycho in Canada committing a mass poisoning, but there's a gun-toting nut on a rampage every few months in this country.

> That's the only problem with guns in this country - rap's glorification of guns' use in killing people.)

Of course, because gun violence didn't exist before rap music was invented. Or was Al Capone blasting Dr. Dre on his iPod? What a bunch of racist bullshit. I'd imagine anonymous doesn't have a problem with John Wayne or Sam Peckinpaugh glorifying gun violence.

Bringing up Putin's fascism and indifference to human life, so you can excoriate him for... taking control of his country's oil revenues? Are you kidding? Stalin murdered millions, Putin... stuck it to some insanely wealthy oil companies. Yeah, pretty much the same thing. Granted, Putin's done some awful things, but from Leonard's article, you'd think not letting Russia continue to give away her natural resources was the worst of the lot.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to plan the BP Executives' Lost Stock Price Memorial on the Washington Mall - I think we can wedge it in between Vietnam and the Holocaust Museum.

Also, unbelievably frightening. For the same reason.