Amazon Plans Music Service To Rival iTunes: WSJ (free today) reports,

Amazon, the world's No. 1 online retailer, is in advanced talks with the four global music companies about a digital-music service with a range of features designed to set it apart. Among them: Amazon-branded portable music players, designed and built for the retailer, and a subscription service that would deeply discount and preload those devices with songs, not unlike mobile phones that are included with subscription plans as part of the deal.

The service could be launched as soon as this summer, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon declined to discuss the service, and hasn't finalized deals to license content from major music companies: Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group; Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG; Warner Music Group Corp.; and EMI Group PLC.

Free mp3s: Mozart. From digg, "Danish national radio released 9 mp3s (at very high quality: 256kbps) with 9 Mozart symphonies in honour of the musician's 250th birth anniversary. Download for free."

The site is in Danish, of course. The downloads are under the "TIDSKEMA FOR DOWNLOAD" label. This is when the Firefox extension Flashgot does it all automatically.

Free mp3s: Jackson Browne.
At BigO, the Singapore rock magazine, the ROIO of the Week [Recordings of Indeterminate Origin] is Jackson Browne's 1971 The Early Days Of Jackson Browne, Live at Jabberwocky Club, Syracuse University:

This is the complete version often referred to as "Jackson Browne’s first known recorded performance". This show appears one year before Browne recorded and released his self-titled debut album that is popularly known as Saturate Before Using. Prior to that, Browne wrote songs for Nico of the Velvet Underground, Tom Rush, the Byrds, Bonnie Raitt and most famous of all, The Eagles. Take It Easy, Desperado and Doolin’ Dalton were all co-written with The Eagles.

Here's to the losers: DFL is "Celebrating last-place finishes at the Olympics. Because they're there, and you're not."

Eliminate the middleman? Why not let corporations run for office? asks Merrill Markoe at HuffPost.

Unless I am missing something, it seems like it makes no sense not to acknowledge that the "people" holding our nation's highest political offices are actually just figure heads for consortiums of international corporations. It's easy for us to get confused and think of them as "people" (as in individuals, human beings) because they do peopley kinds of things like get haircuts, go on vacations, shoot other people etc....

When one of them gives an impassioned speech about the first amendment, are they really just a mouthpiece for ClearChannel? When they support the invasion of a struggling impoverished country in the name of freedom everywhere is it because they are seeking real estate to build a Home Depot? Understanding this stuff is like watching a foreign movie without subtitles....

I know It sounds kind of harsh at first, but it might not be any worse than our present method for selecting presidential candidates which is essentially to cast a Presidential sit com with a lovable reformed rake character as the romantic lead and a whimsical- curmudgeon- next-door-neighbor-and-best-friend as his side kick . This old system has worked very well telegenically for decades , but as with all sit-com actors, you never can be sure who these guys are in real life.

The future is almost here: OMNI Poll: What will 2007 be like? (From 1987)

Gloves? Bacteria hone in on shopping carts - survey. In Korea, anyway. (Your mileage may vary.) The Reuters story nails elevator buttons, as well.