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Universal Music Declines Long-Term iTunes Deal
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Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, has declined to sign a long-term deal with Apple Inc.’s iTunes music store, leaving open the possibility for exclusive deals with other services, an industry source said on Sunday.
Universal will continue to sell music and videos of artists including 50 Cent, Mariah Carey and Black Eyed Peas via iTunes on a month-to-month basis, rather than be locked in to a two-year agreement Apple had proposed, the source said.
For those keeping track, Apple is now the third largest music retailer (9.8%) behind only Wal-Mart (15.8%) and Best Buy (13.8%). They jumped from 7th to 3rd in the last 18 months. And they claim somewhere around a 85-90% share for online music purchases. For Universal, iTunes is the source of 15% of its revenue. At the same time, iTunes only accounts for 3.6% of Apple’s revenue. They make their money on the iPods, and less than 3 percent of the music on the average iPod was bought from iTunes.
Something tells me Apple isn’t going to be the first one to blink in this battle.
Multiple births, multiple risks
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Two weeks ago, Brianna Morrison gave birth to six babies in Minneapolis. Less than a day later, Jenny Masche delivered six babies in a Phoenix hospital. Both of the women had been treated for infertility and had used fertility-enhancing drugs.
The two families expressed joy, but many fertility doctors were dismayed. For years, doctors have been pushing to lower the rate of multiple births due to fertility treatment. Not only had two headline-grabbing births occurred in the same week, but several recent scientific papers also revealed mixed results in the eight-year effort to reduce the U.S. multiple-birth rate.
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The Masche babies were born after 30 weeks’ gestation and are in better shape, although all but one weighs less than 3 pounds. Jenny Masche suffered acute heart failure following delivery because of blood lost during the Cesarean section, according to her doctor at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center. She is recovering. “We sort of wince when these stories occur,” Ory says. “We’re certainly hopeful for the patients. But the public is largely unaware of the problems and complications many of these families face.”
These problems and complications are actually deadly for babies this early:
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Another one of the sextuplets born to a St. Louis Park couple has died, hospital officials said Monday.
Cadence Alana Morrison is the fourth sextuplet to die since the babies were born on June 10. She lived nearly two weeks before dying Saturday morning, officials at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis said. Three of her brothers died within the first week of their birth.
Parents Ryan and Brianna Morrison released a statement through the hospital saying: “Though our difficult time continues, our faith remains strong. Our families, friends, and churches have provided us with great comfort, for which we are deeply grateful.”
The couple also thanked hospital staff, and asked for continued prayers of supporters. The Morrisons’ two other children, girl Lucia Rae and boy Sylas Christopher, remained in critical condition Monday in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
The babies were born about 4 1/2 months early. The smallest of the six weighed only 11 ounces at birth, and the largest was a little over a pound. Hospital officials said no further information would be released and the Morrisons were not talking with the media. The Morrisons, both 24, spent more than a year trying to conceive before Brianna Morrison started taking fertility drugs, according to the couple’s personal Web site.
Their religious beliefs steered them away from undergoing a selective reduction procedure in favor of bringing all six fetuses to term. Clearly its OK by Jesus to make babies from test tubes…but not OK to choose how many of those test tube babies become viable fetuses? They’re perfectly happy to avail themselves of weird and ungodly science and its advice when it suits them, but will fight tooth and nail for their beliefs when it doesn’t. Even if that means the almost certain death of real babies. There is a part of me, a very cruel and bitter part that I try very hard to suppress because these people are probably very kind and friendly when you meet them, and that part that would love to ask these people if they ever thought that maybe, just maybe their Magic Sky Wizard wants them to be infertile after all.
What an incredibly sad story.
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iPhone runs OS X and…
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The password for root is “alpine”
The “mobile” user accounts password is “dottie”
You now have the root password for all iPhones world wide…
Man apologizes for torching women’s clinic
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A Detroit man was sentenced to five years in prison Friday for trying to burn down a women’s health clinic that he mistakenly thought performed abortions.
David McMenemy, 46, pleaded guilty in January to arson against a business affecting interstate commerce. He could have been sentenced up to 20 years in prison.
Police said McMenemy drove to Davenport and crashed his car into the Edgerton Women’s Health Care Center lobby at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 11. He then lit a Gatorade bottle filled with gasoline on fire, walked away from his car and surrendered to firefighters.
hmmmm… where did I hear this before?
after they drove a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow’s main airport terminal Saturday and set it ablaze.
“>
And only 5 years…. Either he was lucky he didn’t have an arab sounding name, or the jordan and iraqi doctors they arrested simply need to apologize:
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“It was wrong,” McMenemy told U.S. District Court Judge John Jarvey at the sentencing hearing. “Even if it was an abortion clinic, it would still be wrong.
“I’m sorry for the hurt and shame of my family, and I want to distance myself from any pro-life organizations.”
Did they change or what?
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WTF?
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Analysis: ‘Sicko’ numbers mostly accurate; more context needed
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(CNN) — Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” which opened nationwide Friday, is filled with horror stories of people who are deprived of medical service because they can’t afford it or haven’t been able to navigate the murky waters of managed care in the United States.
It compares American health care with the universal coverage systems in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Cuba.
Moore covers a lot of ground. Our team investigated some of the claims put forth in his film. We found that his numbers were mostly right, but his arguments could use a little more context. As we dug deep to uncover the numbers, we found surprisingly few inaccuracies in the film. In fact, most pundits or health-care experts we spoke to spent more time on errors of omission rather than disputing the actual claims in the film.
iPhone Sales Top 500,000 In Weekend Rush
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Whatever about the user experience, AT&T’s network overload problems and generally decent reviews – with reservations – the sales figure predictions for Apple’s glossy combo are positive. According to analyst, Blackfriars, which has been monitoring stores, claimed that sales should top 500,000 for the first weekend. In it’s daily blog, it said:
“The bottom line: some analysts claimed that the iPhone launch would be a failure if Apple failed to sell 100,000 iPhones during the first weekend. Based upon the limited data we have, we believe that number was exceeded in just the first two to three hours. Blackfriars’ prediction is that Apple will sell 500,000 iPhones this weekend, and based upon limited sales rates reported, that number now looks quite achievable. The only question is whether the demand and iPhone supply is great enough that they might push past the million unit mark this weekend.”
Things are really only going to get interesting though if sales remain strong for the rest of this year and into 2008.
Turn off the light, babe!
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Don’t try this at home, folks!
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Well, I guess I’m the clumsiest person in the world. I managed to smash the screen less than 24 hours after I got it. I tried answering a call while it was plugged in and the short cord pulled it out of my hand and hit the corner of a table on the way down. 100% my fault. Believe it or not, I brought this into the Apple store and they gave me a brand new phone for free. Talk about fantastic customer care. I am in love 4-eva with Apple.
Zoo
Pollution
Port O’Mail
Dit bericht is voor de mensen die de afgelopen maanden gemerkt hebben dat ik nogal druk was…
ik kan eindelijk iets vertellen over wat ik heb gedaan. Vanaf september gaat het project met volle kracht vooruit, en tot die tijd is het een semi-open publieke beta.
Klik op het logo om te zien waar het om gaat:
Jihad!
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Photo from Bag News Notes (enlargement added)
Bag News Notes quotes the Times:
During the operation, Specialist Paul Goodyear wore a headband bearing a passage from Psalm 91: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”
American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Stephen Mansfield, author of The Faith of the American Soldier, in an interview on CBN:
The vast majority of the soldiers believe they are doing God’s will. They simply believe that the coalition is spreading freedom and righteousness and doing the will of God.
A Christian soldier speaks to AFA:
I’ve stood on the ground in Babylon where Daniel stood. I’ve seen the Euphrates, where Adam, Abraham, Noah, Ezekiel, walked. When I look up at the stars at night I remember them…
It’s not my job to fix the world, but it is my job to minister the love of the Father to it. If I have to carry a weapon to bring freedom to this country, to defend the rights of the Iraqi people, then so be it. I thank God for the opportunity to kick in and do my part.
Jim Walsh in City Pages:
He [Bob Dees of Campus Crusade for Christ Military Ministry] continues, “We have heard all about weapons of mass destruction. There’s been a search for weapons of mass destruction. I’m here today to testify that we have found the weapons of mass destruction. It is Satan’s artillery. Satan is a master of deceit: temptation, pride, isolation, deception, self-sufficiency, anger, and malice of all forms. Satan’s weapons of mass destruction rage all about us, and these weapons are every bit as real as Saddam Hussein’s scud missiles. As the North Korean artillery. Every bit as potent as Al Qaeda.”
As he speaks, the screens show images of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, praying, being baptized in foxholes, and evangelizing. A marine’s helmet scrawled with the 23rd Psalm fills the screen. “It is encouraging to see these indicators of faith in the foxhole,” says Dees.
…the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army’s top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”
Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
“We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this,” Boykin said last year.
On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: “He’s in the White House because God put him there.”
This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile.
The National Security Strategy of the United States [0fficial government document]:
While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self defense by acting preemptively…
Today humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to further freedom’s triumph over all these foes. The United States welcomes our responsibility to lead in this great mission (emphasis mine).
But our responsibility to history is clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.
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Still, I don’t see why wold they have to undersign a long term deal with Apple.
For all we know, next year can come a new e-store which beats iTunes.
They supply on a monthly basis. They don’t lock themselves in. They don’t pull out. They just don’t go into a long term deal.
Why should they blink?
They don’t have to. My point was, if they think Apple is going to back down and cave in, they’re wrong.
Ah, yes, on that we agree.