So I’m done with my last finals ever in high school. Exciting.

And I’m watching the South Carolina GOP presidential candidate debate. It’s highly frustrating how some candidates claim to be real conservatives, when the real “real conservative” is Ron Paul. It’s also extremely frustrating when Rudy Giuliani tries to knock down Ron Paul by accusing him when he’s actually making a valid point. I lost all possible faith in Giuliani there.

Ron Paul deserves your vote in the Republican primaries. Seriously. Please. He’s the most consistent, principled, Constitutional candidate— by far.

If you haven’t heard yet, a new law may go in effect soon, drastically raising the royalty rates for playing songs on Internet radio, very potentially and easily putting the vast majority of good Internet radio stations out of business. Here are some excerpts from the Digitally Imported article:

On Friday March 2nd, the U.S. government, through the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), made a determination of the royalty rates Internet Radio webcasters must pay the owners of sound recording copyrights to license the music they webcast for the years 2006-2010. The license is paid to SoundExchange, a nonprofit organization that collects royalty payments from digital music broadcasters and distributes them to rights holders.

The issue is that the new rates completely ignore the business and market realities of Internet Radio. In a nutshell they expect many webcasters, such as at Digitally Imported, to pay far greater money for licensing than we ever even collect from all of our services, effectively driving webcasters out of business.

…

What’s ironic is that even if the Internet radio advertising market was fully mature, which it isn’t, and we played as many audio ads for you as we could - then not only we’d be in for a prize for most ads played by any entity, as one other webcaster joked. But we still would be very far from reaching the required revenue numbers and being able to pay such rates. It’s just completely unrealistic to expect any sort of a model to exist both now and in next years that would come close to being able to justify these rates. Maybe the big corporations of the world such as Yahoo and AOL could in theory afford to loose on such rates and still provide music, but that doesn’t mean all other businesses have to go as a result. Do you really want to have just a few big corporations playing the music for you in the future?

You may ask us about why don’t we just play unlicensed tracks or make an agreement with artists directly to avoid paying so much. The reality of the business is that it is virtually impossible to micromanage things this way. You’d have to have a world class communication company to be able to track down so many artists or labels, find where who is, who to contact, what forms to sign, talk them into it, etc. Plus you’d be surprised just how much of the non-mainstream music you love so much here is really signed to a label. That’s why in theory the law that allows for a blanket license is really convenient - it’s just that the rates which were set now are truly hopeless and stifle any kind of competition. What are we supposed to do, wave a flag and and turn into a payola service? Put a banner out that says “hey, whoever pays us the most in advance gets to have his or her track heard on the radio!”? Because that’s the only model that is going to work with these rates.

So if you care at all about Internet radio (e.g.: maybe you listen to A State of Trance with Armin van Buuren), then please take a few minutes of your time to write emails or letters to your senators and congressmen. Or if you’re lazy, like me, you may just go to this Congress.org page to copy an already-written letter you can paste. If you live near me, though, I highly encourage some variation/deviation from that letter, since I’ve already emailed that in to Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Sam Johnson.

In any case, if you want to act like a good citizen today, take this chance, regardless of whether or not you listen to Internet radio! (Remember, kids, the future of Internet radio is in your hands!) Thanks.

The former third Premier and later the thirteenth General Secretary of the Communist Party in China, Zhao Ziyang, died in a Beijing hospital on January 17 of this year. He is responsible for some liberal steps forward in China, from inviting some capitalism to slightly relaxing restrictions on freedom of speech and press. He had been in house arrest for fifteen years, since the Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989.

What happened on that day that put the highest authority in China under arrest? Coming back from a trip to Pyongyang, he went down to the protesters in Tiananmen Square and was reported to have told them that he had come too late, he was old, that it wouldn’t matter what happened to him because of this event, and that they should stay alive as young people with a future and flee the Square. They didn’t. The next day, Deng Xiaoping and some of the other leaders in the Communist party declared martial law, crushed the protests, and arrested Zhao Ziyang.

Fifteen years later, he is well remembered by many… in the West. In mainland China, strict rules govern how a limited invited few can go to his memorial and the Tiananmen Square was cleared. In Hong Kong, pro-Democracy legislators are being scolded for their actions in remembrance of Zhao Ziyang.

From the CS Monitor: “China crops its history”

… Now Beijing’s effort to silence discussion about Zhao at home has jumped the mainland’s borders and landed in the heart of Hong Kong. The city is the only place on Chinese soil where Zhao can be publicly remembered. But a request Tuesday for a minute of silence for Zhao in the parliament here was ruled unconstitutional by the assembly president - outraging pro-democracy lawmakers. Wednesday they stood quietly for a minute, anyway. That caused pro-Beijing members to walk out, shutting down the legislature for the first time ever.

Reformers in Hong Kong say the ruling against Zhao is further evidence that the spirit of Hong Kong’s agreed-to special autonomy is being violated. Thursday feeling ran deep among democrats that the dispute underscores a serious cultural distance between Hong Kong and Beijing, as the two sides get to know each other.

“I don’t understand this ruling at all. As far as expressive politics in Hong Kong are concerned, this [moment of silence] is an act of humanity and basic decency,” says Margaret Ng, a lawyer and parliamentarian.

…

In Hong Kong, the ban on the silent moment upset even moderate columnists like Frank Ching, who called China an “abnormal country,” though his comments focused more on the party. “The party remains above the state and not subject to the law. Since the party is paramount, this means that the most powerful body in China is, in essence, a lawless body. It can incarcerate anyone it wants to, from the lowliest peasant in the countryside to the highest official such as Zhao, without … due process.”

You should most definitely read the whole article.

This is from his Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang

The government’s response to Zhao’s death was notably muted, probably out of fear that mass mourning would spark national protests as had occurred after the deaths of Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. The official Xinhua News Agency carried a four line statement on its website saying that “Comrade Zhao Ziyang” had passed away, without making any note of his official titles or legacy as a leader. Zhao’s death was not mentioned on state-run television and radio programs. The newspapers carried a five line annoucement on the day following his death, leaving the main means of mass dissemination through the Internet. Internet forums, such as the Strong Nation Forum and the SINA.com Forum were flooded with messages expressing condolences for Zhao, but these messages were promptly deleted by moderators, leading to more postings attacking the moderators for deleting the postings.

In Hong Kong, 10,000-15,000 people went to the candlelight vigil of Zhao. The mainlanders such as Chen Juoyi said that it was illegal for any Hong Kong legislators to join any farewell ceremony “because under the ‘one country, two systems’ Hong Kong legislator cannot care anything about mainland.” The statement caused a political storm in Hong Kong for three days after his speech. Szeto Wah, the chairman of The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said that it was not right for the Communists to depress the memorial ceremony. The twenty-four pan-democrat legislators went against the chairperson of the Legco, insisting that security be tightened at Tiananmen Square and at Zhao’s house, and that the authorities try to prevent any public displays of grief.

China should realize this silently upsets some of the knowledgable few in China (not good for maintaining their own power!), and also everyone in the West, although it is true that the West, America included, can not do much about it. I do not criticize the Chinese people– remember, I am Chinese, too…– but I do criticize the government.

This post is dedicated to the intelligence and the person of Zhao Ziyang.

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