Some days the music business reminds us of that old Tom Lehrer quote: "Political satire became obsolete the day they awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger." It also seems that you can't out-stupid the record industry.
On Thursday, June 28, the US Supreme Court voted 5-4 that manufacturers could impose minimum prices if "they promote competition." The case—<I>Leegin v. PSKS</I>—involved Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc., a California-based manufacturer of women's fashion accessories, which argued that it had the right to set minimum consumer prices on its products to maintain price consistency among the niche retailers it sold to. Those stores, Leegin argued, emphasized customer service, which allowed them to compete with discount retailers that are selling more widely distributed, inexpensive products.
Huckleberry, on the other hand, just brazens it out. <I>What table? Oh, the one beneath me? Are you sure that counts? Well, I was tired of sitting here anyway.</I>
Bagheera, like all cats, is a lawyer. <I>It's not a table, it's a counter, in the sun—in the cattery.</I>
Those <A HREF="http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070428/bob9.asp">rubber duckies</A> oceanographers have been tracking since 1992 are about to make landfall in the UK. Not the first time Old Blighty has been menaced by an armada.
"The same acoustic silence, embedded in two different excerpts, can be perceived dramatically differently," writes Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis in an article in the June issue of <I>Music Perception</I>.
<I>Living In Stereo</I> argues that, far from being the best Beatles album <I>SPLHCB</I> was the worst . . . least best . . . um, not greatest non-soundtrack album.
"A stinking, rat-infested cesspit that would never be tolerated now." And your point is . . . ?
Neil Gaiman argues that the science fiction novels of H.G. Wells, while fine, pale compared to his short stories. Gaiman says that the SF stories survive, while "many of the mainstream novels he considered more important and significant are gone and, for the most part, forgotten, perhaps because the novels were very much of their time."
I loved the first six volumes of <I>Tales of the City</I>, although the recently published <I>Michael Tolliver Lives</I> sounds pretty dire. Still, few writers have ever written more lovingly about the city by the bay.