Dave Lucas

FBImagine

2009-11-14T19:11:00.001-05:00

When attending a press event last week I overheard a reporter talking on her cell phone, telling a colleague (assumption there) "...make sure you delete the files..." and later the same day I passed by a paralegal saying something to the effect of "...make sure you shred the documents..."

I'm amazed by the FBI's ability to produce, day after day, damning evidence at the Joe Bruno trial, in the form of emails, memos and documents. They must have one hell of a team of "diggers"!

Now imagine if the FBI team could ride a time tunnel back to the days of Mayor Erastus Corning... with all of the political shenanigans that supposedly were going on at the time, 3/4ths of Albany would be indicted and half the city would probably be in the penitentiary!

Whatever! When the JB Trial is over (and probably even now, as I write this) lawmakers and politicians and businesspeople running will be scrambling to shred, delete andotherwise dispose of any paper or electronic trails they may have left behind...

♫ New Life For The Old ♥ CD ♫

2009-11-14T14:27:00.001-05:00

In "New role for the CD?" I wrote: "A generation or two stands between the 33rpm vinyl album with its artwork and liner notes and the digital music CD which is what it is. On Facebook this week Yarah Bravo has been plugging her new CD and mentions she won't be pressing any more hard copies. People who had a copy commented back how glad they were to have an original."

I see two great marketing opportunities emerging for artists (like DJ Vadim & Yarah, pictured at left): issue limited edition specially enhanced mixed media CDs, numbered like artists number prints of their works, like "3 of 300" - and - offering an "enhanced download" including liner notes and artwork that can either be printed out or simply viewed on the computer. The CDs have the potential to increase in value over time. Downloaders get more goodies (which cost the artist next to nothing to add to the CD package)"

In the same Posterous Post, I told how "This morning I heard that a local music distributor is closing several retail shops because people are buying and downloading music online." Turns out the radio broadcast I heard left out an important detail of the story: (quoting from the Times Union) "Trans World Entertainment Corp., the Albany company that operates f.y.e. stores, is closing 125 of its locations nationally, although none are in the Capital Region." Comments on the newspaper article run the gamut, from "’m surprised they will only close 125. I’m surprised they are still in business what with Itunes and the internet. I haven’t been in a music store in a decade" to "Trans World, the company that pioneered selling merchandise at a much higher price than manufacturer’s suggested price! Before Trans World, most dealers reduced prices from the suggested list price."

More Good Reading:::

Pearl has "A short interview with DJ Vadim"

Archives:::

Plunge in CD Sales shakes up big labels

One Self – Children Of Possibility

CDs I've Enjoyed

Tags: Yarah Bravo, CD

Saturday INTEL

2009-11-14T14:15:00.000-05:00

Rainy day! This is the view from the front booth in Spinner's, where I had lunch today.

Friday I tied up a lot of loose ends... also cleaned up at the Casino! Nothing like an afternoon of gambling to clear the cobwebs out!

Teddy Jimbo has posted both English and Japanese videos of U.S. President Obama's speech on Asian policies, given in Tokyo... Chinese Netizen Questions For Obama During His Visit ...Some folks are commenting about Obama's visit to Asia on MichelleMalkin.com::: In the mood for some thought-provoking chatter? Head on over to Michelle Malkin's blog for a bit of Saturday Open Thread action!

Major Nidal Hassan is a US military psychiatrist of Arab origins who went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas, killing 13 soldiers. He is now facing the charges of premeditated murder. "Psychiatrist or Psychotic?" ask Egyptian bloggers.

India is morphing into a global R&D hub, but can it ever take on Silicon Valley? According to TechCrunch, when Americans think of the Indian technology sector, they still perceive a nation of call center workers and low-level computer programmers...

flaneurose notes that cable TV and the internet are now viable alternatives to mainstream media. The blogger ponders the impact of the diminishing power of mainstream media in Singapore.

I'm snacking on some Sugar Babies from Trick-or-Treat night. Haven't had any of these guys in years, and they taste different than I recall. Initially, they remind me of Kandy Korn, until you get to the caramel. And they seem to be much sweeter they were before.

Sometimes pop music seems sweeter than it was before: Here's a review of Rihanna’s upcoming Rated R album...

CHRIS BROWN pushes back at Rihanna's recent TV tell-alls!

Bai-Ling philosophizes and pictorializes: "...on the moon, there is no time no society no human no obstacles no language no dreams no need and no cold blue color..." D'ohkay!

Too Late for Flowers is a short story by Liberian writer Saah Millimono: “Theresa was in her seventies, lean, gray-headed, with a wrinkled face and almost toothless mouth when I moved into her house as a tenant. She had suffered a stroke that left her right leg crippled and her left arm useless.”

Brunotes

2009-11-13T06:24:00.000-05:00

Will Joe Bruno rise again?

It wasn't a secret - but they didn't ask and he didn't tell* - that's the common denominator running through the parade of witnesses called to testify so far in the Joe Bruno trial.

*er, sometimes he did...

Bruno's corruption trial entails allegations that the former NYS Senate Majority Leader intermingled official duties with private business deals. The 80-year old Bruno says he is innocent. The indictment accuses him of improperly receiving $3.2 Million Dollars from various sources between 1993 and 2006 while failing to disclose that information.

Bruno earned $1.4 Million Dollars from consulting work for the Connecticut investment firm, Wright Investors’ Service. The company’s president told The New York Sun in 2003 that Bruno was paid a part-time salary for referring clients to Wright, that Wright did not manage money for New York State, and that Bruno’s consulting did not involve his work as a senator.

If convicted on federal mail and wire fraud counts, Bruno could face 20 years in prison and some hefty fines.

Daily News columnist Liz Benjamin posted a pair of Brunotes: Here and here...

TIMES UNION Audio: Sen. Bruno calls in

Thursday afternoon's proceedings ended with the judge "flipping out" on Bruno! According to a Bruno associate, the judge misinterpreted Bruno's interactions with his legal team as "something else." Yup - the trial certainly is "something else!"

Pop Clips » 12 Nov 09

2009-11-12T18:55:00.000-05:00

The General Lee::: Spotted in Brooklyn...

Facebook saves a soul...

The parents of Balloon Boy Falcon Heene will enter guilty pleas in court Friday as part of a deal to avoid deportation to Japan for his Mom, Mayumi Heene.

Mike Tyson brawls with papparazzi in L.A.

The 5th Chinese Blogger Conference took place last weekend in rural Lianzhou in the northern part of Guangdong province. There were around 150 participants from China and overseas attendeding. The conference slogan for this year is "Micro power and a boarder world" - covered here by Oiwan Lam for Global Voices.

The Daily Telegraph published an article “Social-media and networking websites booming in Russia” [ENG] by Denis Terekhov, one of the marketing specialists in Russian social networks.

VIDEO 2 GO

2009-11-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

TV TONIGHT:::Geoffrey Philp!!! "I'll be appearing on WPBT's Nightly Business Report tonight (7:00 p.m EST) in an interview with Jeff Yastine. We talked about blogging, social media, Kindle, and publishing in the Internet age"

Janelle Monae explains super powers and The Ark Android.

Monica +Webcam = Sant

via Miss Info: Dallas Penn x Sean Price “Mega-Sean” (video) + new music vids from Dirty Money, Wyclef, and more!

W+A+R+N+I+N+G Gross video of the "chimp attack" victim.

Joke of the day!

2009-11-12T07:23:00.001-05:00

Cops to Albany students: walk in groups. Okay, college kiddies, groups of HOW MANY? Check pD4 of the Times Union. Obviously 2 to 1 ratio doesn' t work Maybe 4:1? 5:1? Hard to think that even the Bailey Murder this is the advice from police. That's Albany!

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e-mail from James Arthur Ray

2009-11-12T06:55:00.000-05:00

Dear Dave,

I'm continuing to devote all my energy to determine the facts surrounding the tragic accident at Sedona. I've instructed my representatives to meet with the authorities in Arizona and to share with those authorities the facts they learn. That process is ongoing.

In the meantime, I want to let you know that not only is this situation requiring all of my personal focus, it's also consuming my entire team's focus as well. For that reason, you can expect significant delays in responses to all general business requests. We have every intention of responding once we have helped determine what happened in Sedona.

Much love and respect,

James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray International, Inc.

Next Caller Up...

2009-11-12T06:16:00.001-05:00

Joe Bruno! It will be interesting to see if the judge hearing the former Senate Majority Leader's corruption trial reacts to Bruno's calling in to radio talk shows to essentially plead his case in the media. What will the judge do? There are a couple of possibilities. Gag order? Media ban? Move the trial to Buffalo?

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Around The Blogosphere 11 November 09

2009-11-11T18:44:00.000-05:00

As many of their supporters feared, and on the same day as a round table on the case against two detained video blogging youth activists, a court in Baku, Azerbaijan, earlier passed sentence on Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli. The verdict and first reaction spread on Twitter. .::mOrE::.

Al Gore's TV Network Firing 80 People Due to Wild Success

Brave New Foundation posts a petition and YouTube video with young veterans asking Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The "DC Sniper" & Who's Your Daddy?

Find, Follow, Feed: YouTube’s Social Strategy And Solving The Curation Problem - You may not have noticed it, but YouTube is evolving.

Women's Issues...

2009-11-11T18:00:00.002-05:00

PETA pisses me off. It's wrong to exploit animals but it's OK to exploit women?

Beware of coyotes!

Lady Gaga Says 'Bad Romance' Video Is About 'Tough Female Spirit' [MTV News]

Did somebody mention "threesome"??? Gossip Girl Still Thinks You Matter!

Meet Kami, the HIV+ Muppet

2009-11-11T07:27:00.000-05:00

A far cry from the innocent days of Rowlf...

As the children's show Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary this month, premiering its new season today, one Muppet named Kami, on its South African edition, continues to help combat and raise awareness about HIV/AIDS.

Takalani Sesame, the South African Sesame Street co-production, made international news in September, 2002 when they introduced Kami, the world's first HIV-positive Muppet. Kami's name is derived from kamogelo, which means acceptance or welcome in Zulu, Sesotho, and Setswana. Kami has also made appearances at UNICEF events and at the Peabody Awards. For her US appearances, Kami is performed by Fran Brill.

Tags: Kami, Aids Muppet

Scotia Attack Demands Answers

2009-11-11T07:04:00.002-05:00

The recent robbery and beating of an elderly Scotia couple by a crony of a health aide worker raises many concerns. Why hasn't the health aide been arrested as an accomplice? Why is her employer's identity being shielded from the media? Isn't it time background checks of home health aides be extended to include "significant others" and family members with arrest records? Hopefully one of the children of Julius and Elisabeth Gelber will read this and start asking some questions and DEMAND answers. Someone must be held accountable for this despicable crime.

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New York Minutes 10 Nov 09

2009-11-10T07:45:00.001-05:00

Sex Tapes from J. Lo's first marriage won't be in a movie... For Now

Last Night in NY -Women of the Year:::Rihanna, Iman and Amy Poehler attended Glamour's Women of the Year event...

This should be in a movie::: Dancing With the Stars goes from camp to pure insanity when Donny Osmond, dressed as Jacko and wearing lipstick, dances the paso doble with Cyndi Lauper!

WCBS reports that an investigation is underway into a possible act of terrorism at three separate buildings in Manhattan.

Detailed info out on the infamous wrong-way Taconic Parkway Crash from July... the comments accompanying the post are quite acidic!

WFUV NYC listeners may have noticed signal deterioration::: that's not exactly what's going on. What it is is an antenna-replacement project in the Bronx. WFUV's main transmitter is off the air weekdays from approx. 8a-4p, leaving only the WFUV-1 booster atop Riverside Church (and the WFUV.org webstreams) on the air during the day. Night and weekends, WFUV turns its auxiliary on antenna at the Bronx site, restoring most of its coverage. The project should be finished around the middle of next week, weather permitting.

Pop Clips » 9 Nov 09

2009-11-09T21:49:00.000-05:00

Mouseover and click on his calling card (at left), then check out Nidal Hasan Did the Right Thing ::: radical Muslim blogger Anwar Awlaki calls the Fort Hood shooter “hero” and “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

HASAN 'AWAKE AND TALKING'...

REWIND ::: July 2006 - American al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn rallies jihadists “to go on a shooting spree at the Marines’ housing facilities at Camp Pendleton.”

ChannelNewsAsia interviews Cheo Ming Shen, co-founder of Nuffnang.com, along with some of the Asia-Pacific region's top bloggers, including Xiaxue!

Say Whaaaat? MURDOCH: NEWS CORP. Sites 'To Be Removed From GOOGLE'...
On November 6th, a police officer at the Department of Internal Affairs in Novorossiysk used his personal Web site to address Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and talk about numerous problems police officers face in Russia... and ...20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a smatter of Russian bloggers mention what some call "the most important event in the history of the 20th century."

Tags: Nidal Hasan, Xiaxue, Wendy Cheng, Ft. Hood, Nuffnang, Nuffnang

Around The Blogosphere 09 November 09

2009-11-09T05:59:00.004-05:00

My two trusty tools: the VM Kyocera Wild Card and the Fly Ying F003. I added this photo in a re-post of my "World In Pocket" article on posterous, all about how mobile telephony is changing the way we exchange information. But it is so much more than that. The newest phones are like having a combination communications and entertainment center plus a computer that you can tote anywhere Get one for YOUR pocket! I'm using the HiPhone, but since there's no wifi on my street my Kyocera comes in handy for blogging, im-ing and e-mailing. Ah, well... I have big pockets. And thank God for cargo pants!

In case ya haven't heard: Yarah Bravo’s new CD is on iTunes for your downloading pleasure...

Catherine at shuflies responds to an e-mail questioning how she identifies herself. Michella at Alive and Kicking! who was also a subject of the e-mail describes her own multi-cultural background. Catherine also follows up with a post on why she calls herself a Taiwanese-American.

Here's a weird little Chinese story: German man killed in hijacked Beijing taxi

Hackerspace.sg posted: There are dozens of hackerspaces around the world.

Hackerspace.sg will be Singapore's.

Built by and for geeks, nerds, inventors, engineers, and entrepreneurs, hackerspace.sg will be the hacker community's living room and laboratory.

Michelle Malkin asks Why do we have to read British papers to get Ft. Hood jihadist news?!

Pat Austin blogs "Clearly the British press is not an Obama fan. And why would they be?"

From Miss Info: New Music: Robin Thicke feat. Jay-Z “Meiplé” (CDQ)

MicroPersuasion::: Five Incredibly Useful Things You Can Do Without Ever Leaving Facebook

Blogs, Facebook: Uganda gay's last frontier?

iPhone Worm

2009-11-08T20:30:00.001-05:00

The Apple minions never thought the day would come! But now it is here! The first real-world iPhone cyber-attack has come ... there's a RickRoll for that!!! Now, say you'll never fool around with factory settings for your iPhone ever again!!! The scoop is ... researchers warn that more serious exploits ~~could~~ will follow. (Emphasis mine!) I'm sure this will encourage and inspire Hackerz everywhere! Forbes::: Over the weekend, researchers at cybersecurity firms Sophos and F-Secure detected the world's first active iPhone worm, spreading among Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) smart phone users in Australia.

HOW TO REMOVE RICK ASTLEY FROM YOUR iPHONE

Forbes says that there are no estimates as to just how many iPhones have been infected with the rickrolling "ikee" worm... Only users that have "jailbroken" their phones--altered them to run applications not authorized by Apple--are vulnerable, and among those, only those who failed to change their default password for a secure shell (SSH) application that allows file transfers between smart phones.

Read the complete article here!

Tags: iPhone worm, iPhone Trojan

Unjustifiable Excesses?

2009-11-08T18:30:00.000-05:00

Last week, in an Albany Times Union "letter to the editor," one Laird Scranton opined that the $1.6M salary drawn by RPI President Shirley Jackson was an "excess in largess" which is "unjustifiable in terms of the sacrifices that are demanded of others." Scranton's words reminded me of Joe Bruno, the once powerful New York State Senate Majority Leader, now on trial for making introductions. Bruno moonlighted (as many legislators do), in his case as a high-paid "introducer" for a brokerage firm. He made money. Lots of money. Some people have a problem with other people making money.

The Secret World of James Arthur Ray

2009-11-08T16:39:00.000-05:00

Something happened to James Arthur Ray on his way to spiritual enlightenment: he bumped into the dollar. Not that there's anything wrong with making a buck. JAR went a little buck-a-rooney, it seems. "James Ray pretty much abandoned all of us. He left us there to figure out what was going on," orthodontist Beverly Bunn told "Good Morning America"...

Some are calling JAR's Sedona Moment "...the personal development world's 9/11..." Others believe that "...a healthy dose of negative thinking would have saved the lives of those positive thinkers who died in Ray's sweat lodge."

More:::
"Spiritual Warrior" James Ray Puts Beverly Hills Home on Market
A Spiritual Search Turns Deadly
Is Karma in Play for James Arthur Ray?

Tags: James Arthur Ray, James Arthur Ray

Joke's On Me (and you!)

2009-11-08T09:47:00.000-05:00

I was JK last week when I blogged that perhaps the infamous government informant / entrapper Malik played a role in the events leading up to the trial of former New York state Senator Joe Bruno. Turns out I'm not that far off the mark: in Carl Strock's Sunday Gazette column, he points out that "the prosecution team of William Pericak and Elizabeth Coombe is the same team that prosecuted Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain of Albany for supposedly supporting terrorism" - small world, huh?

Around The Blogosphere 8 November 09

2009-11-08T00:10:00.000-05:00

Yoaní Sánchez, Cuba's most famous blogger, who has received countless international awards for her activism, was detained briefly and beaten by Cuban authorities on November 6, along with fellow bloggers, Claudia Cadelo (a Global Voices contributor) and Orlando Luís Pardo Lazo. Bloggers express their views concerning the incident. Yoaní has written [es] about the incident on Generación Y, her blog, and English-language blogs like Babalú Blog, Repeating Islands and Uncommon Sense are following the story. An audio interview [es] with Sánchez about the incident has been posted to YouTube.

As the trial of video blogging youth activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli continues in Baku, two English-language bloggers from Azerbaijan react to Friday's aborted court hearing.

On-line Social Networks in Syria

TechCrunch:::

NSFW: After Fort Hood, another example of how ‘citizen journalists’ can’t handle the truth

For Reporter Without Borders, “Press Freedom is the Price for Democracy”

John Allen Muhammad

2009-11-07T23:07:00.002-05:00

Do you remember John Allen Muhammad? The mastermind of the deadly 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington DC area is scheduled to die Tuesday by lethal injection. Muhammad's teen accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, is currently serving a life sentence. I won't miss or shed a tear for either of these two. Nor should you.

Death Waits

2009-11-06T22:02:00.000-05:00

Patience. Death has more than enough. Thursdays papers carried two articles: one about NYS Trooper David Lane. The 30-year old stationed at the Catskill barracks was driving northbound on 32 Wednesday afternoon when his cruiser bumped a vehicle he was trying to pass, sending the police car into a pole, and Lane into the netherworld. This youmg man had served his country in Iraq and Afghanistan, and made it home safely. You will not know the hour when death may decide to bump shoulders with YOU!

Driver inattention is suspected as the cause of anotehr crash where a 30-year old Saratoga county woman nearly lost her life. Dawn Ormsby may have been fiddling with the car radio when she went off the road and landed at the entrance ramp to the netherworld. Lots of injuries, but thankfully death left the scene of the accident. She'll heal. A prayer or two might help here.

Postal People

2009-11-06T17:55:00.000-05:00

Raucous crowd Weds PM at the Elks Lodge in albany bemoaning the pending closure of the underused Pine Hills Post Office. Jeepers, if you wanna save it so badly, GO there - BUY stamps - BUY money orders instead of using checks - SEND packages outta there instead of using FedEx or UPS! The place is a ghost town - let the gov't shut it down! It's just one of many like it across the country where people with nothing better to do - you know the kind - the guy who buys a stamp once a month to mail out his electric bill - the woman who stops by every December to buy Christmas stamps... shut it down already!

Through the Brunoscope

2009-11-06T07:14:00.001-05:00

I'm one of several reporters for local media watching and acting as a floater in the coverage of the trial of Joe Bruno. The chatter among reporters revolves around the zillion dollar question: did Bruno do anything any other politician would have done (or might be doing now). He makes a great target: people outside the immediate area lump Bruno in with Bernie Madoff. Yeah, that's interesting, but incorrect. Speaking off record, a source close to Bruno told reporters about some fascinating facts about the gov't investigation that will be revealed when the trial is over. I wondered silently if perhaps gov informant Malik played a role in this case too. Don't laugh. Stranger things have happened. Having said that, prosecutors are slowly, methodically building their case.

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