Perhaps the reason for fewer upsets this year is that teams that in the past would have been seeded much lower (e.g. So. Ill.) were actually seeded properly. So instead of having good but under-rated teams from outside the big conferences playing mediocre big boys in the first couple of rounds they got to play against marginal teams.

There is a whole wealth of great music out there around the world. Expand your horizons a little more. I listen to BBC6 for several hours a day at work. Cool new Brit indie with a nice mix of older stuff. I also listen to FAT radio 104.5 from Bangkok a couple of hours a day for Thai indie/rock/pop that is mostly really good even though I don't speak much Thai the music is still great. And it's gotten me to buy all sorts of Thai CDs from online vendors that I never would have known about. There are internet radio stations all over the world. It takes some effort to find the good ones but they're out there waiting to be discovered.

I would also guess that your favorite artists in the US of A will still be able to offer their own music on their own websites.

How does all this effect MySpace which now has a page maintained by just about every band in the world?

Well, this is the country that brought us Hello Kitty and any number of cutesy fads. So I'm not surprised by this. Frankly it doesn't seem all that cute to me and I drive a MINI!

Of course what these big media companies truly fear is losing control over the business. And I think the horse left that barn a long time ago. Because the internet allows artists to connect with fans and find an audience by networking online they don't need the record companies to enslave them. They can record an album in their basement using their laptops, master it, and release it all on their own. They don't even need to bother making CDs anymore for the most part.

I agree the variety out there these days is pretty staggering. I have been listening to all sorts of Thai indie/rock for the last year or so. All of it discovered online one way or another, but I have been buying actual CDs direct from Thailand via the Net or in person while I was there on vacation. I suppose that would be a problem for people who care about lyrics since I don't speak Thai hardly at all, but for me the vocals more or less just become another instrument. The problem with those CDs is that piracy is so rampant in Thailand that the big company releases are all DRM'd so I can't rip them to mp3 which kind of pisses me off, but I know why they have to do it.

Every couple of years some new technology or other is going to kill the music business. What is happening now is the democratization of the music business, and it's about time.

I really love the fact that it's called "My Sweet Lord".

He should have used dark chocolate though. Milk chocolate is so blah.

Where we Barr's principles of smaller governtment, etc when he was busy forcing the people of overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic Arlington County to change the name of our airport from Washington National to Ronald Reagan Washington National? I'm sorry but that alone was so arrogant that I will never forgive him.

Since we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that using condoms is the most effective thing, certainly in comparison to circumcision, why not promote and encourage that instead of asking guys to get themselves mutilated?

And nevermind the fact that virtually every other mass-killing event in our country's history was perpetrated by white males. And the vast majority of serial killers have been white males. Maybe we should start locking up all the white males pre-emptively just in case they might decide to start shooting.

The fact of the matter of course is that his nationality means nothing. His easy access to guns and bullets allowed him to kill all of those people.

This fear of reprisals seems quite strange to me. I would be surprised if anyone at Tech thinks that there's a problem with all Koreans because of one crazy guy. And frankly how many Americans' can tell a Korean by their looks or their name anyway? I suppose if you believe this is going to be a problem that all East Asians would be at risk the way Sihks got caught up in the post 9/11 hysteria. But I don't think anyone is going to go after Asians or Koreans because of this.

I love the fact that he was booed and HISSED by the people who work at the bank when he tried to make excuses for himself. The union of rank and file workers has demanded his resignation. How anyone can defend this corrupt piece of trash is beyond me. He ought to be in jail for his crimes against humanity.

You know LCD monitors are actually pretty cheap these days. You can get a 19" LCD for about $160. I paid close to $500 for mine a few years ago.

But I agree that replacing your monitor proably doesn't make sense given the enironmental costs of getting rid of the DRT. I still have my old 17" CRT collecting dust in my closet.

I think we can safely say that there's no way in hell these criminals would ever voluntarily or involuntarily resign. And the chances of impeachment happening are even less. But it is fun to imagine President Pelosi beating out HRC to become the first woman president.

How much credibility does Tenet have? If what he says now is what really happened: 1. why did he not object at the time? 2. why did he not resign at the time? 3. why did he accept the Medal of Freedom?

He belongs in jail with the rest of them.