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Napster has revealed that it’s planning an aggressive marketing campaign again Apple’s iPod as part of its plans for a full launch of the Napster To Go portable subscription service later this quarter.

The service, which soft-launched in the US in November, is likely to roll out in the UK in March. It’s one of the first services enabled by Microsoft’s Janus technology, which for the first time allows music files bought via subscription services to be transferred from a PC to a portable device.

According to Napster CEO Chris Gorog, speaking to NMA at MidemNet this week, his company is betting heavily that the monthly ‘all you can eat’ subscription model will win the battle of the digital services, rather than the download strategy currently pursued by Apple’s iTunes, which has around 70% of legal download sales.

“We’re confident it will be the model the entire industry backs,” said Gorog. “It’s exactly what consumers want to do. Napster To Go is very similar to the P2P experience.”

He believes the best way to market the new service is to emphasise its advantages over iTunes. He’s particularly keen to highlight iTunes’ iPod-only compatibility. “We’re going to be communicating to people that it’s stupid to buy an iPod.”

And paying a monthly fee or access to your music gets cut of is not stupid? Especially when that music cannot be played on the most popular music player available right now? (yes, I mean the iPod)

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that is indeed a penis in place of the battery icon. And yes, it goes flaccid as the battery depletes. Probably the best part about this whole modification is that when the iPod charges, there�s a rapid erection animation going on in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Unlike the other images, all of the penises are pixelmashes; all individually drawn by hand/mouse. I will go to great lengths to be juvenile.

Customer Service Department
B&Q
Dear Sir/Madam

My congratulations to you on getting a yacht to leave the UK on 28th November 2004, sail 27,354 miles around the world and arrive back in the same place 72 days later.

Could you please let me know when the kitchen I ordered 96 days ago will be arriving from your warehouse 13 miles away?

Yours sincerely

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Halliburton Co. (HAL), an oil services company and major military contractor in Iraq and elsewhere, lost track of a shipment of radioactive material in October but didn’t alert the government until this week.

Federal authorities mounted an intensive search and found the material Wednesday in Massachusetts.

According to a report Halliburton filed Tuesday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the material was lost in October as it was being shipped to Texas, where Halliburton is headquartered. It apparently had been misdirected in New Jersey and ended up at the Forward Freight facilities in Boston.

Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said Thursday that Halliburton’s four-month delay in reporting the loss didn’t comply with notification requirements and the incident is under investigation. The material was two sources of the element americium, which is used in oil well exploration.

(They forgot polandium!)

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Darwin’s 200th Birthday will occur on February 12, 2009; it will also be the 150th Anniversary of the publication of his famous book On The Origin of Species. So, together we have time to evolve a truly International Celebration to show our appreciation for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

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Remember that Osama Bin Laden guy? Wondering how that whole War on Terror business is going?

Apparently, our close ally Pakistan is trying a new tactic: giving money to Al Qaeda.

The BBC reports:

Pakistan says it has paid 32m rupees ($540,000) to help four former wanted tribal militants in South Waziristan settle debts with al-Qaeda

Military operations chief in the region, Lt Gen Safdar Hussain, said the payments were part of a peace deal signed on Monday with tribesmen.

It is the first time Pakistan has admitted making such payments.

(First time admitting it?! Does that mean there have been other payoffs that were kept quiet?)

The South Asia Tribune is more pointed than the BBC:

[The] Pakistan Army has publicly admitted paying Al Qaeda over half a million dollars in the most bizarre deal it has ever made with militant Waziristan fighters, [who have been] battling the Army and the US forces in the rugged terrain bordering Afghanistan for months�

�General Hussain said the the payments were part of a peace deal signed on Monday with tribesmen, but the public admission that money had been paid to be transferred to Al Qaeda stunned analysts and diplomatic observers in Islamabad.

Also, Pakistan�s Daily Times had reported earlier that the ceremony for this �peace deal� was marked by �Taliban militants shouting �Death to America��

The Daily Times editorial board was critical of the deal:

It sounded very much like the �peace� ceremony last year with Nek Muhammad, the Wazir �Taliban commander� with Al Qaeda connections �

…But where is the honour of the government of Pakistan and how has it redeemed it in the long drawn out �war with Al Qaeda� in the Tribal Areas?

The �deal� with Nek Muhammad fell through before the ink was dry on it and the man had finally to be killed with a missile, but not before he became a �hero� of sorts despite his not so honourable personal profile in the area where he operated.

So, you can see why Dubya said just a few weeks ago that:

[The] Pakistan government has been aggressive in pursuit of al Qaeda targets in Waziristan.

And I appreciate the work of President Musharraf.

He came the other day, on a Saturday morning to the White House and it was an opportunity to thank him once again for some of the bold steps he’s taken.

If this wasn�t ridiculous enough, it gets worse.

While four wanted militants accepted the payoff, a fifth rejected it, Abdullah Mehsud. The South Asia Tribune called him the �main militant rebel�.

The “main militant rebel” was actually in custody at Gitmo for two years. He was released last year.

According to NBC News, It�s unclear whether Mehsud was a hardcore militant who tricked the US into releasing him, or if he was radicalized at Gitmo and became hardcore upon release.

So in recent days, we have our main War on Terror ally paying off Al Qaeda, while being snubbed by a former prisoner.

We have North Korea getting nukes while we sat idly by.

We have the likelihood that the Administration
delayed revealing until after the election what the FAA knew about potential suicide hijackings before 9/11.

We have a newly revealed Richard Clarke memo, showing that Condi lied when she said �no Al Qaeda threat was turned over to the new administration�

But leaving aside all that, the War on Terror is going just fine. We got ‘em on the run.

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The government on Friday proposed a new copyright law to make it illegal for Norwegians to copy songs from their own CDs onto MP3 players, but legal to do so for making a CD duplicate.

The proposal, intended to bring Norway’s law in line with European Union rules, drew immediate praise from the music and film industry as well as criticism from opponents.

Even though Norway is has remained outside the EU, it is bound by most of the bloc’s directives through the European Economic Area Agreement.

The new proposal would allow fines and a maximum penalty of three years in prison for violating copyrights and engaging in computer piracy.

The amendment, which requires parliament’s approval, would make it illegal to crack security codes on DVD and CDs or to provide software or hardware for doing so, a news release said. It would still be legal for a person to make a copy of their own CD or DVD for private use, even if that means cracking the code, as long as it was being copied onto the same digital medium and not onto another one.

“For example, a CD’s (security code) could be cracked to play a recording on a car stereo, since a CD-player would be seen as an appropriate medium,” the news release said. “But the security code could not be cracked to copy the recording onto an MP-3 player, since such a device would not be seen as an appropriate for a CD.”

So, if you buy a CD, you cannot play it on your iPod. Buy the same songs from the iTunes Music store, and you can play them everywhere. Why would anyone ever buy a CD again with this law in place?

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Now tell me, Earthlings, how good you thought my poetry was!