Penelope Patsuris thinks the EMI-Warner Music Group talks do nothing to deal with the future: There is no doubt that if EMI does end up taking a majority stake in Warner Music, the new entity will have money-saving economies of scale and an extensive music library. Warner Music’s troubled parent …

Stratfor-boy thinks the bombs will fly this weekend: A veteran intelligence analyst says Washington almost surely will choose a full-out war against Iraq, as soon as this weekend over the moonless Arab desert. With that first strike, says Strategic Forecasting founder George Friedman, President Bush will have lodged the centerpiece …

AOL offers MusicNet service with 250,000 songs beginning today: In the strongest attempt yet to create a legitimate alternative to free music-trading sites, America Online will introduce a service today that lets users download and listen to a large catalog of songs. For $8.95 a month, users will be able …

In their clueless arrogance, Microsoft has decided there is such a thing as “information rights” – information is free, o great Satan: It looks like the “rights management technology” that Microsoft has been rumored to be building into Office is on the cusp of debuting in Office 2003. The Windows …

Are crackers the last bastion of PC-acceptable bigotry? Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA) thinks so, and he’s madder than a cheese curd in a box of grits: A southern senator Tuesday accused a major U.S. television network of peddling “bigotry for big bucks” by planning a “reality” show based on “The …

Through a discussion with my mother-in-law, a recent devotee of Buddhism, I am coming to understand the rationale of the hard-core peace philosophy (an odd juxtaposition of words, I know). The bottom line for no-war-period people is that “war begets war,” and that by refusing to indulge in the urge …

Our own Seth Farber is “The Talking Dog,” and the proprietor of the mammothly impressive “The Dog Run – Breeds and Comments” blog directory, with dozens and dozens of entries ranging alphabetically from: A Brooklyn Bridge— a brand new blog by Brooklyn writer Glen England. The vast conspiracy of Brooklyn …

Deranged demagogue Dennis Kucinich. Item: A federal judge yesterday threw out a lawsuit that sought to bar President Bush from launching an attack against Iraq without a congressional declaration of war. …. U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled the case could not go forward without “clear, resolute conflict” between the …

I guess it is human nature to try to prevent the fire that has already devastated, to fight the last war, to fix the shuttle after it has crashed. I am certain something like this is going on in your town as well: Workers from the Cleveland fire marshal’s office …

Spanish computer claimed to picks hits with 93% accuracy: Scientists in Barcelona, Spain, have created a new “tune technology” to accurately pinpoint which songs will be hits, using 22 variables, such as melody, beat, harmony and the distance between the singer and the microphone. Researcher Mike McCready says the computer …