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US mulls unusual tactic as Blackwater charges loom

Cuba: Government Officials Tell Bloggers to Cancel Planned Meeting

- 4 hours and 54 minutes ago

A Cuban blogger meet-up scheduled for December 6 is in danger of being cancelled by the authorities. The event, which has been in the planning stage for months and had 25 confirmed attendees, is being deemed “counterrevolutionary.” This is according to a recent conversation between officials from the Interior Ministry and one of the island's most well-known bloggers and Best of Blog winner Yoaní Sánchez of Generación Y [es].

Sánchez received a summons notice, which she photographed and published on her blog, for her to appear at a local police station. Her appointment with government officials took place last Wednesday, and immediately following the event, she posted about the details:

El encuentro es breve y el tono enérgico. Somos tres en la oficina y el que lleva la voz cantante se ha presentado como el agente Roque. A mi lado, otro más joven, me observa y dice que se llama Camilo. Ambos me anuncian que pertenecen al Ministerio del Interior. No están interesados en escuchar, hay un guión escrito sobre la mesa y nada que yo haga los distraerá. Son profesionales de la intimidación.

El tema me lo esperaba: estamos cerca de la fecha para el encuentro de blogger que, sin secretismo ni publicidad, hemos estado organizando desde medio año y ellos me anuncian que tenemos que suspenderlo. Media hora después, cuando ya estábamos lejos de los uniformes y de las fotos de líderes en las paredes, reconstruimos aproximadamente sus palabras:

“Queremos advertirle que usted ha transgredido todos los límites de tolerancia con su acercamiento y contacto con elementos de la contrarrevolución.Eso la descalifica totalmente para dialogar con las autoridades cubanas.

La actividad prevista para los próximos días no puede ser realizada.

Nosotros, por nuestra parte, tomaremos todas las medidas y haremos las denuncias pertinentes y las acciones necesarias. Esta actividad, en los momentos que vive la Nación, de recuperación de dos huracanes, no será permitida.”

The encounter is brief, the tone energized. There are three of us in the office, and the one with the singer’s voice introduces himself as Agent Roque. At my side, the younger one watches and says his name is Camilo. They announce that they are with the Interior Ministry. They are not interested in listening. There is a script on the table and nothing will distract them. They are professionals of intimidation.

The subject I expected: we are approaching the date of the blogger meetup we have been organizing, with neither secrecy nor publicity, for the past six months and which they proclaim must be cancelled. About a half hour later, when we were away from uniforms and photos of leaders on the walls, we tried to reconstruct what was said.

“We want to advise you that you have transgressed the limits of tolerance in your closeness and contact with elements of the counterrevolution. This disqualifies you totally to conduct dialogue with Cuban authorities.

The activity scheduled for the next few days cannot take place.

We, for our part, will take all measures and will lodge the pertinent charges and take the necessary actions. This event- in these moments which the nation is living, recuperating from two hurricanes- will not be permitted.”

(translation of Sánchez' post by Babalú blog)

Sánchez was not the only blogger to be summoned by government officials. Claudia Cadelo of Octavo Cerco [es] also received an unexpected visit by the police. She writes about the surprise in her post titled “Me too!,” where she also posts a photo of the summons:

Con Reinaldo Escobar en el teléfono, aún sin conexión, y enterándome por él de todo lo ocurrido, no tuve tiempo a expresar mi frustración ante la anulación de nuestro primer encuentro de bloggers, pues en ese mismo momento un policía tocó a mi puerta para entregarme mi respectiva citación:

Presentarse mañana en la estación de policía de Zapata y C a las 2 pm.

With Reinaldo Escobar (Yoaní Sánchez' husband) on the telephone, and still without connection and learning about everything that happened, I did not have time to express my frustration for the cancellation of our first blogger meet-up, and in that very moment a police officer knocked on my door to hand me my own citation:

Present yourself at the police station at Zapata and C at 2 pm.

Cadelo posted a photo of herself holding the summons, smiling, flashing a peace sign and a sign in the background ironically saying “I Love Minint” (Ministry of the Interior). The image drew the attention of Enrisco del Risco, who sees the photo as a sign that “times are changing” and writes [es]:

La sonrisa y el orgullo con que enarbola un papel que cada vez da menos miedo. El desafío y la complicidad. Y ese cartel al fondo que lo dice todo diciendo lo contrario con una gracia reservada para cosas menos serias. Los tiempos cambian porque ella sabe que no está sola, que ahora mismo mirando esa foto â€“con un punto de angustia, es cierto- estamos todos nosotros.

The smile and the pride that lifts her role and provides less and less fear. The challenge and the complicity. The sign in the background tells all and the opposite with a humor reserved for less serious things. The times are changing because she knows that she is not alone, that right now looking at that photo - certainly with a bit of distress - are all of us.

In spite of the warnings from government officials, Sánchez says that the meet-up will go on as planned. In a recent AFP news article [es], Sánchez writes that these types of intimidation tactics by the government only draws more attention to her blog and an increase in traffic. She also thinks that the summons was excessive since the meet-up was not political in nature, and that the bloggers was an informational gathering to learn about techniques and share experiences.

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US mulls unusual tactic as Blackwater charges loom

Cut Your Phone and Cable Bills by $100 [How To]

Lifehacker

- 16 hours and 26 minutes ago

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/boxee_cropped.png" width="328" height="252" align="right" hspace="4" vspace="2" align="right"/PC Magazine columnist Sascha Segan got sick of paying for cable and phone services every month he knew were over-priced and under-utilized. Using some simple negotiation tactics and a bit of tech work, he cut his land line and lowered his cell phone bills. The former required he actually leave his cell company and buy a pay-as-you-go model, causing his former carrier to come back with better rates. To save on shows he wasn't really watching, Segan set up a combination of over-the-air HD channels, a dual-tuner TiVo, and an Apple TV model a href="http://lifehacker.com/5057411/atv-usb-creator-loads-boxee-and-xbmc-on-apple-tv"loaded with Boxee/a (which we a href="http://lifehacker.com/396382/boxee-is-xbmc-with-newer-look-and-social-flair"toured earlier this year/a). It's not exactly Depression-era frugality, but can be an inspiring read for anyone thinking about re-configuring their monthly cash flow. div class="related"a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2335010,00.asp"How I Slashed My Bills with Tech/a ( a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2335912,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000585"part 2/a) [PC Magazine]/div /p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=efd823e7c06e0825c8a64dcb2a4e063cp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=efd823e7c06e0825c8a64dcb2a4e063cp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=efd823e7c06e0825c8a64dcb2a4e063c" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=FDxspRgc"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=QHc3nE4A"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=cfmhgKcA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=cfmhgKcA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=xHaQlXOd"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=xHaQlXOd" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/xvv-2oRalIY" height="1" width="1"/

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[App Store Release] Touch SPEED

[App Store Release] Bounce Trap

GoDaddy Uses Standard Tactics To Warehouse Domains

TechCrunch

- 1 days ago

Having working in the domain name industry myself for a couple of years, I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that there’s such a big business formed around something as trivial as a bunch of letters and numbers used to ‘translate’ IP addresses. And when there’s a big business in something, you just know there will be a grey area as well where ethics are left at the door sometimes.

Andrew Allemann over at Domain Name Wire has been doing an excellent job researching the hoops The Go Daddy Group jumps through to keep its shady tactics outside of the public view, resulting in this great blog post. Turns out The Go Daddy Group, which runs the world’s largest domain name registrar GoDaddy.com as well as some other domain name related companies, is apparently warehousing its customers’ expired domain names and directly profiting from them.

Warehousing and auctioning off expired domain names is not necessarily against ICANN (the governing body over domain name registration) regulations and actually quite a common practice among larger registrars, but the story only gets interesting when you take a look at what goes on behind the transparent part of it. When a valuable expired domain doesn’t sell through an auction on The Domain Name Aftermarket (aka TDNAM, GoDaddy’s auction platform), The Go Daddy Group changes the ownership of the domain to one of its lesser known subsidiaries, Standard Tactics LLC, using Domains By Proxy’s whois privacy service to hide its identity. Next thing you know, that company will start monetizing the domain names using parked domain pages filled with ads and list the domains for resale on TDNAM.

On August 16, 2005, GoDaddy formed a subsidiary called Standard Tactics, LLC in New Mexico. Before founding Standard Tactics, all of GoDaddy’s subsidiaries were incorporated in Arizona where the company is headquartered. There are a couple reasons GoDaddy may have chosen to form the company as a New Mexico limited liability company rather than an Arizona corporation. First, by creating the company in New Mexico it could distance itself from it. Second, by filing as a limited liability company instead of a corporation, it didn’t have to list directors of the corporation.

In fact, Standard Tactics LLC is a subsidiary of Special Domain Services Inc, which is a subsidiary of GoDaddy Inc, which is a subsidiary of The Go Daddy Group. See a pattern here? The only reason why we even know this is because the information got out when GoDaddy attempted to file for an IPO in 2006 (it eventually withdrew the filing).

So why is Go Daddy going through such lengths to keep the public from knowing about its aftermarket operations, when it’s not even against ICANN regulations? Paragraph 3.7.9 of the agreement between ICANN and Registrars says:

“Registrars shall abide by any ICANN adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.”

Only problem is ICANN hasn’t yet adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing, leaving registrars in a unique position to impact domain name pricing top-down by introducing competitive bidding or auctions for expired domain names.

It’s really no wonder GoDaddy is trying to cover its tracks and hide these practices, but thanks to Andrew the word is now out.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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Man blamed for Darfur crisis says 'I am at peace with myself'

Guardian Unlimited

- 1 days and 7 hours ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/35029?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Man+blamed+for+Darfur+says+I+am+at+peace+with+myselfch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Sudan+%28News%29%2CHuman+rights+%28News%29%2CWar+crimes+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Simon+Tisdallc7=2008_12_04c8=1128339c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Sudanc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FSudan" width="1" height="1" //divpThe man accused by the international criminal court of planning, organising and directing an orgy of violence against civilians in Darfur that left up to 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million homeless has angrily protested his innocence, calling the allegations part of a political plot by the western powers to recolonise Sudan./ppIn an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, Sudan's minister of state for humanitarian affairs, said he defied the ICC and the international community to do their worst and vowed never to give himself up to the tribunal./ppHarun claimed the evidence against him was concocted and unreliable. And he described the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, as a disgrace to the legal profession who should be sacked. "My conscience is clear. I have no regrets," Harun said. "What I have done was legal, it was my responsibility, it was my duty. I am content. I am at peace with myself."/ppThe ICC has charged Harun, in his former capacity as Sudan's minister of state for the interior, with 42 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur in the period from August 2003 to March 2004./ppThe eight-month period witnessed a peak in fighting between rebel and pro-government forces. The large-scale civilian casualties, gross human rights abuses and mass displacement later caused the US government to accuse Sudan's political leadership of genocide and led to UN and EU sanctions against Sudan./ppThe Darfur carnage caused international outrage that has yet to abate as the violence there continues, albeit at a reduced level. Numerous efforts to forge a lasting peace agreement during the past five years have foundered while hundreds of thousands of people remain in refugee camps. Meanwhile, human rights and advocacy groups have added their voices to calls for Harun and other alleged war criminals on both sides to be prosecuted./ppBut Sudan is not a party to the ICC. It has so far ignored UN security council demands that it cooperate with the court and surrender Harun and his co-accused, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, an alleged Janjaweed leader also known as Ali Kushayb. /ppICC judges are currently considering a request by Moreno-Ocampo for an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity also relating to events in Darfur./ppSpeaking in his ministry's smart new offices in Khartoum, Harun said the ICC was in effect conducting a political vendetta against Sudan that had little or nothing to do with justice. /ppstrongRelaxed and confident/strong/ppThroughout the interview, Harun, a tall 43-year-old dressed in a smart charcoal suit and open-necked shirt, appeared mostly relaxed and confident. Occasionally his eyes flashed with anger as he discussed the accusations against him./pp"We believe the ICC has digressed from its main objective and become part of the international political conflict. It is another phase of international colonisation. It targets mainly the Africans. It reminds us of the 19th century when the white people were dominating here in Africa./pp"The main aim of the white people in Africa at that time, the British and the Europeans, was to disseminate their culture and their traditions. Under the flag of attractive slogans, so many things happened. Now there is a new imperial era but this time it is led by the United States and supported by the Europeans."/ppHarun, a trained lawyer from the Bargo tribe in western Sudan and a former judge, argued that UN security council resolution 1593 that referred Darfur to the ICC in 2005 was discriminatory because it exempted citizens of the US, which like Sudan is not a party to the ICC's founding treaty, from action by the court. For this reason, the ICC prosecutor was ignoring the "first principle" of equality before the law./pp"This is a discriminatory prosecution. It is also discriminatory because the ICC is targeting only African countries," Harun said. "Also, any serious investigation should begin on the ground, in theatre, in Darfur. And witnesses who are part of the problem should not be taken into consideration. They are not reliable sources."/ppSuggesting the ICC investigation was superfluous as well as politically motivated, Harun said a national investigation committee created by Bashir had examined many senior officials over their roles in Darfur. "I was one of them. I gave answers to all their questions. No action was taken. There was no evidence, so there was no reason to take action."/ppHarun added that any future move to indict Bashir, or any backroom deal in which he himself might be handed over to the ICC in return for Bashir being granted immunity, would only prove his contention that the ICC proceedings were political. In such circumstances, he said, he would never voluntarily surrender himself. And nor was he prepared to meet Moreno-Ocampo if the latter came to Khartoum./pp"The prosecutor has brought his profession into disrespect. He is not welcome in Sudan ... He should be replaced. This is what we are requesting. I add my voice to the voices of the international society because he is insulting the profession of justice and insulting African countries."/ppAsked to explain his actions in Darfur in 2003-4, Harun said he had faced an internal, essentially local conflict between Darfurian tribes that quickly transformed into a political conflict with encouragement from forces outside the province./ppRebel leaders Minni Minnawi, Abd al-Wahid Muhammad Nur, and Abdallah Abbakar initially called themselves the Darfur Liberation Movement, he said. But this later became the Sudan Liberation Movement as external actors got involved./ppThe Darfur rebellion, also fuelled by Khalil Ibrahim's opposition-backed Justice and Equality Movement, threatened the stability of the Sudanese state as a whole, for example by undermining the 2005 North-South comprehensive peace agreement which was then nearing fruition, Harun said. The government had no choice but to act./pp"The policy and tactics of the government, like any other government when things like this are happening, is to begin by mobilising./pp"We have a security reserve force - the Popular Defence Forces - to respond to those attacks, a paramilitary force. Some people call the PDF by different names, some call it militia, others are calling it Janjaweed. But it is a formal force and it works under the directions of the army."/ppUnable to match pro-government forces militarily, the rebels changed tactics and created a humanitarian crisis in Darfur to attract international attention and intervention, he said./ppstrongRebels blamed/strong/pp"They started putting pressure on civilians to move out of villages, they killed their children, women they abducted, they destroyed the infrastructure and means of people's livelihood, and caused the mass migration of people into refugee camps."/ppIn other words, he suggested, it was the rebel groups that were responsible for the civilian massacres, atrocities and mass displacements in 2003-4, not himself or the government. Sudan's government in any case disputes the UN's casualty estimates, claiming only about 10,000 people died./ppReports that he boasted in a 2003 speech that he had "the power and the authority to kill or forgive whoever in Darfur" were fabricated, Harun added. And he insisted his 2004 description of the rebels as "fish" who needed the "water" of the villages to survive (thereby allegedly justifying the destruction of villages) was a distortion of his meaning./ppPeople in Darfur knew the truth, he said, which was why he was still welcome there. "I move freely in Darfur. I have strong support. I am popular in Darfur because they know who protected them."/ppLeaning back in a well-padded armchair with a broad smile on his face, Harun said he was a religious man who had done nothing to offend against God. But he did not claim to have a close relationship with the Almighty./pp"I am not like George Bush. I do not talk to God. In Islam, we believe Muhammad was the last prophet. Since Muhammad, no one can talk to God."/ppAs for the future, he suggested relations between Sudan and the international community would deteriorate further if the ICC persisted with its present course. A total breach with the UN was not out of the question./ppHarun's openly defiant stance underlines how difficult it may be to bring justice to Darfur while avoiding an open confrontation with Sudan and, at one remove, its African Union and Arab League allies. If allowed to continue unanswered, it also threatens the credibility of the ICC./pp"We don't expect anything good from the ICC. But for every action, there will be a response," Harun said. "The ICC will do whatever they want. We will wait and see what they do. We will defend our country as best we can to the best of our ability, according to our opinions."/ph2Backstory/h2pThe stronginternational criminal court/strong was established in strong2002/strong as an independent tribunal to try individuals responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was designed to complement national legal systems, stepping in when a country appeared unable or unwilling to prosecute. More than 100 countries are members./ppAtrocities committed by rebel commanders in the strongDemocratic Republic of the Congo/strong and by the Lord's Resistance Army in strongUganda/strong prompted the opening of the first cases in 2004. Investigations into abuses in Sudan's strongDarfur/strong region began a year later. /ppIn February 2007, ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced that Sudanese minister strongAhmad Harun/strong and Janjaweed militia leader strongAli Kushayb/strong were suspected of committing crimes against humanity. The indictment and warrant for their arrests, dated April 2007, specifically accuses Harun of targeting the ethnic African Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit tribes by employing elements of the Sudanese armed forces and Popular Defence Forces paramilitaries, and by "recruiting, arming and funding" irregular Arab militias known as strongJanjaweed/strong/ppAccording to the court, pro-government forces over which Harun exercised command launched a campaign of terror that included "murders of civilians, rapes and outrages upon the personal dignity of women and girls ... and destruction of property and pillaging of towns"./ppThe indictment claims that the campaign was of a "strongsystematic/strong strongand/strong strongwidespread/strong strongnature/strong" conducted "over an extensive period of time... in furtherance of a state or organisational policy consisting in attacking the civilian population"./ppIt goes on: "Ahmad Harun intentionally contributed to the commission of the above-mentioned crimes ... In his public speeches, Harun not only demonstrated he knew the militia/Janjaweed were attacking civilians and pillaging towns and villages but also personally encouraged the commission of such illegal acts."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/sudan"Sudan/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/humanrights"Human rights/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/warcrimes"War crimes/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/99ZPD_i__SILc-p8fgs1R8yAN7A/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/99ZPD_i__SILc-p8fgs1R8yAN7A/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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Monster Mini Golf Using eBay To Fight Monster Cable's Trademark Lawsuit

Techdirt

- 1 days and 9 hours ago

Monster Cable is a href="http://www.techdirt.com/search.php?site=#038;q=monster+cable"famously litigious/a over its trademark -- suing just about ianyone/i who uses the name "Monster" as a part of their corporate offering. Most of these lawsuits are bogus -- as trademark only covers the specific areas of business you're in, and doesn't give you complete control over the name. Thus, if you make a a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080722/1513011763.shtml"salt lick/a for deer called Monster Deer Block, you shouldn't have to worry about a lawsuit from Monster Cable... but you'd still get one, as pretty much everyone from the TV show Monster Garage to the Boston Red Sox (for the "Monster seats" on top of the "Green Monster" wall in left field) have found out. br /br / Earlier this year, the company went after a small mini-golf operation in California called a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080515/1940111131.shtml"Monster Mini Golf/a, which we doubted anyone would confuse with the cable makers. Apparently, that wasn't the only Monster Mini Golf that Monster's lawyers were busy hassling. a href="http://addic.tv"Chris Collett/a alerts us to the fact that a Rhode Island based Monster Mini Golf is a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem#038;item=250335844365" target="_new"also facing a lawsuit, and asking for help/a. But, there's an interesting twist here. The company is pleading it's case a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem#038;item=250335844365" target="_new"on eBay/a, and asking people to contribute to its defense fund via eBay. I'm not sure if this goes against eBay's terms of service, though I hope it doesn't: blockquotei BUT...one man is destined to crush what we have built. He is the founder of Monster Cable Inc. (a company that makes Audio cables) and he's suing us for "Trademark Infringement". br /br / In a nutshell, trademark infringement is based solely on "Likelihood of Confusion", or essentially, "could the average consumer be confused between the two?". The answer is no, as decided by the Patent and Trademark Office when they granted our trademarks, but Monster Cable Inc filed an opposition against that decision, and sued us. br /br / To this day, this one man has opposed approx 400 companies...and it doesn't look like he EVER intends to stop. This is the true meaning of Corporate Bully. br /br / Their tactic is to run the smaller companies out of money, and force them into a settlement where they surrender their name to Monster Cable Inc, who then licenses it back to them for a fee. Yes, so then we would be paying him for a concept and business we created and have worked very hard for! It is essentially extortion, but sadly, it is cheaper than going to trial, which can be crippling to small businesses like ours. br /br / Unlike the 414 companies he has forced into settlement by bleeding them dry.... we have decided to continue on and fight the good fight. We have chosen to stand up for anyone who has ever been bullied, picked on, abused, or otherwise forced into an unfair or unjust situation by a bigger, stronger, (or in this case, richer) opponent. br /br / Each small business that was forced to sign over their name is one more brick in the massive Monster Cable Inc wall, held together by the blood of those crushed beneath their corporate wheels. It is very very sad. br /br / So far our legal fees are well over $100,000. (And counting) and will likely reach $250,000 when all is said and done. No wonder why 400 companies have waived the white flag!! 250K is the cost of "Winning"!! We need your help, we cannot afford to do it alone. Wondering if this is real or not...just google Monster Mini Golf and Cable. Or visit audioholics web site and you will also read about many other cases there as well. br /br / What we are selling is a "Piece" of our legal defense and a small slice of Justice to you for $1. Yep, just a buck....and as Sally Struthers once said, that's less than a cup of coffee! Geez...at Starbucks, it wouldn't even buy you that! br /br / In return for your gracious purchase, you will receive a heartfelt "Thank You" from us and the knowledge that you have helped defeat a corporate bully who has been abusing the legal system for years! And, if you print your paypal receipt and take it to any Monster Mini Golf location, we'll take $2 Off a round of Mini Golf! (that's double your money back! Reg price for 18 holes is between $5.50-$7.50) /i/blockquote This is interesting, as I hadn't heard that Monster Cable was apparently iselling/i the Monster name back to people it bullied. That's even more obnoxious -- and a clear abuse of trademark law. Also, it's been a while since we've seen companies using a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20031218/101247.shtml"eBay auctions for PR/a, so maybe that's making a comeback. Either way, if you want to help stop one of the biggest trademark bullies out there, maybe try to buy a share of the legal defenses, and hope eBay doesn't take the auction down.br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081203/1332043008.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081203/1332043008.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081203/1332043008op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8d99090b556f8667c4475f241988bb29p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8d99090b556f8667c4475f241988bb29p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=8d99090b556f8667c4475f241988bb29" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=nqmHo"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=nqmHo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/474046231" height="1" width="1"/

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Telephone Tactics

Forrester: How to squeeze your vendors

InfoWorld: Top News

- 1 days and 12 hours ago

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"IT vendors may be growing increasingly desperate amid the global economic downturn, but customers must employ a range of tactics -- not just bullying -- to extract cost savings from them, a group of Forrester Research analysts said during a client teleconference Wednesday./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Companies simply can#39;t use a shotgun-style approach and expect to succeed, said software licensing analyst Duncan Jones: quot;Anything that is undifferentiated, like a general letter that goes out [to vendors] saying we#39;ve got to cut everyone#39;s maintenance by 10 percent? That#39;s not going anywhere.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[#160;For more on how to deal with the recession, check out#160;a href="http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=samp;V=113008amp;source=fssr"InfoWorld#39;s special report: IT and the financial crisis/a.#160;]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Analyst Paul Roehrig, who focuses on outsourcing and IT services, said it is difficult and awkward to extract price concessions on a signed contract./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;Either you#39;re begging or threatening.... Those [tactics] tend to work, but only for a short time,quot; he said, adding, quot;unless you#39;re really overpaying, there#39;s really not that much room in the provider#39;s margin where they can lower the price point without changing the service level.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"And if a customer does succeed in lowering its services costs, quot;the vendor is going to immediately substitute junior people,quot; said analyst John McCarthy, whose coverage areas include offshoring./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Instead of begging for a rate cut, customers could instead ask their vendors to assign more seasoned workers to their projects, resulting in productivity gains and cost savings, McCarthy said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Meanwhile, the tactics are different for software licenses and maintenance agreements, according to Jones./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;One of the problems is, you#39;re dealing with a software rep who has different goals than you. He needs to sell new licenses and has no interest in helping you cut costs,quot; he said. quot;But if you get up higher in the organization, there are going to be people who care more about the long-term relationship, and there#39;s flexibility there.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"That said, now is the time to push for bigger discounts on new licenses, as sales representatives quot;are desperate to meet their number by end of the year,quot; Jones added./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Companies could even indicate they#39;d be happy to let any outstanding deals float over into 2009, he said: quot;That will probably be too late for the rep, so try it as a tactic and see how much flexibility you#39;ve got.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Also, customers could use money they#39;re prepared to spend on new software as leverage, Jones said: quot;Anything you#39;re trying to get, like cutting maintenance on products you#39;re not using, you might be able to get that as a quid pro quo for spending in another area.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Beyond maximizing their buying power, companies should save money by determining which software assets no longer need a maintenance contract, Jones said: quot;You save costs with minimal impact on the business, but you put pressure on other vendors because it shows you#39;re seriously looking at everything.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"A similar approach should be taken to IT services contracts, Roehrig said. quot;If you#39;re asking for the highest levels of service, you#39;re going to be paying top dollar, when the reality is that the enterprise can function just fine with not everyone having gold-plated service.quot;/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Companies should also try to get more value out of outsourcing in general through strategic hiring, he said. quot;If I had money as a client to invest in one thing ... I would get someone who really knows how to manage a service provider. Some of the best outsourcing deals I#39;ve come up against have really good people who know how to get a service provider to do what you want.quot;/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Customers should also seek to lower the total number of service providers they contract with, leading the way to bigger volume discounts, Roehrig said. But he noted that this can be difficult for heavily federated organizations to accomplish./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"It#39;s also possible to save money by actually helping one#39;s vendor cut costs, according to Jones./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"If four divisions within a company are negotiating separately with a vendor, they should consider consolidating those relationships, he said: quot;I would go to the vendor and say, how can I earn cost reductions by dealing with you in a centralized fashion?quot;/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

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Harvard Prof on RIAA Tactics: 'It’s a Shake-Down, Extortion, Blight, and an Insult'

Georgia run-off denies Obama total control of Senate

Guardian Unlimited

- 1 days and 21 hours ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/50871?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Georgia+run-off+denies+Obama+total+control+of+Senatech=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Obama+White+House+%28News%29%2CDemocrats%2CUS+news%2CBarack+Obama+%28News%29%2CWorld+news%2CRepublicansc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Ewen+MacAskillc7=2008_12_03c8=1127899c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Obama+White+Housec13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FObama+White+House" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Republicans have won a crucial election to deny president-elect Barack Obama and the Democrats the chance of a 60-seat "super-majority" in the Senate./ppThe Republican incumbent, Saxby Chambliss, held on to his seat in Georgia in an election run-off held because the November 4 vote failed to produce an outright winner./ppChambliss had called on the electorate to back him in order to build a "firewall" against total control by Obama of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives./ppThe Republican victory means the Democrats have 58 of the 100 senate seats. A majority of 60 would have allowed them to override Republican delaying tactics such as filibusters that could play havoc with Obama's ambitious legislative programme. Instead, the Democrats will have to rely on moderate Republicans to see their bills through./ppAnother senate contest, in Minnesota, is being recounted and remains in the balance but the Georgia defeat makes that outcome less important./ppWith 96% of the vote counted, Chambliss took 57% to Democratic candidate Jim Martin's 43%. Martin benefited on November 4 from the big African-American turnout in the southern state for Obama. Turnout on Tuesday, by contrast, was low./ppBoth sides saturated Georgia with adverts and visits by prominent politicians, including the failed vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, on Monday. Obama, possibly wanting to avoid association with a defeat, did not go to Georgia to campaign for Martin./ppIn Minnesota, the Democratic candidate, Al Franken, is trailing the Republican Norm Coleman in a recount that has to be completed by December 16. Franken is cutting into Coleman's lead. By last night, with 93% of the total vote recounted, Coleman was only 303 ahead./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/democrats"Democrats/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barackobama"Barack Obama/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/republicans"Republicans/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/SFGvZC8YITySS35Mw_IaWciNPJc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/SFGvZC8YITySS35Mw_IaWciNPJc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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Devil Survivor : invocation dimages

Kate Kendall Hits Back at Damning iRolling Stone/i Prop 8 Piece

-Daily. Gay. News.- Towleroad: a premium site for modern gay men.

- 1 days and 23 hours ago

The current issue of Rolling Stone has posted its Prop 8 article online, which takes to task the "No on 8" campaign for its failure to anticipate that it had a major opponent in the Mormon church and criticizes its strategies both on the ground, and on the air.

An excerpt:

"But evidence of entrenched homophobia and religious intolerance obscure a more difficult truth. Prop 8 should have been defeated â€” two months before the election, it was down 17 points in the polls â€” but the gay-rights groups that tried to stop it ran a lousy campaign. According to veteran political observers, the No on Prop 8 effort was slow to raise money, ran weak and confusing ads, and failed to put together a grass-roots operation to get out the vote. 'This was political malpractice,' says a Democratic consultant who operates at the highest level of California politics. 'They fucked this up, and it was painful to watch. They shouldn't be allowed to pawn this off on the Mormons or anyone else. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and now hundreds of thousands of gay couples are going to pay the price.' From the start, the leaders of the No on Prop 8 campaign and their high-priced consultants failed to realize what they were up against. According to Geoff Kors, who headed the campaign's executive committee, the No side anticipated needing no more than $20 million to stop the gay-marriage ban. The Yes side, by contrast, set out to change how initiative politics are played, building a well-funded operation that rivaled a swing-state presidential campaign in its scope and complexity. It also built a powerful, faith-based coalition that included the Catholic Church, Protestant evangelicals and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 'The direct involvement of the Mormon church â€” moving donors in a very short window to give early â€” was stunning,' says Patrick Guerriero, who was called in to take over as campaign manager of No on Prop 8 in the final month. "It was unprecedented â€” and probably impossible to predict."

Kate_kendall_photoc National Center for Lesbian Rights executive director Kate Kendall (katek), hit back at the magazine in a comment to the article online.

"When Dickinson called to interview me about the No on Prop 8 campaign it became obvious he wasn't interested in the facts about the campaign, he wanted only information that supported this hit piece. When he didn't like my answers, he just asked more leading questions. We lost. Yes, as in any campaign, mistakes were made, but to quote from unnamed sources and anonymous gay leaders running for cover in the wake of this devastating loss while ignoring all facts that don't support your assasination attempt against those who worked tirelessly for months is not jouralism, it's just trash. Dickinson should ply his 'blaming the victim' tactics with the National Enquirer."

Same-Sex Setback [rolling stone]

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