The .CM scam

It's always good when your country of origin makes it around the blogsphere for a scam the government agreed to be a part of.   I first saw the story on Michael Arrington's TechCrunch.

The .CM pages are served based on a wildcard. If the domain has not been registered, the user is redirected to agoga.com. Since the redirects are taking place via a wildcard, and domains are not actually being registered, there is little trademark holders can do to fight this (other than register the domain themselves).

It seems the big companies are the ones that are most affected/annoyed by this scam except for one: Yahoo.  It  seems that Yahoo was actually smart enough to buy yahoo.cm domain.  You can read more about the guy behind the scan CNN money article.  I think this is deplorable and it's really shows how easily government in developing countries can be taken advantage of.  Hopefully, the Cameroonian government will move away from this deal as soon as it can.

Technorati tags: Cameroon, Internet

More on Immigration

Unless you've been living under rock over the last week, you're probably aware of the new immigration bill that will be debated on senate floor over the coming weeks.  Although I feel that we are moving in the right direction when it comes to immigration reform, this bill is not enough.  I could sit here and list out everything that I think is wrong with the bill, but every media outlet has already covered that part since the announcement of the bill last week.  This bill is not enough because the bill fails to address why people come to the U.S. and why they stay.   Before Congress passes any sort of immigration reform, the president should ask congress to commission a nationwide study/survey on immigration, preferably by an organization with no political agenda but I would settle for a bi-partisan committee. Before the survey is conducted, its design (and including the questions) should be scrutinized by 10 randomly chosen research universities of top 100, of which no more than 5 should be private institutes and no more than 3 should be ivy league schools (No offense to ivy league school but they have the reputation of being too liberal).  This would be give more credibility and it will be withstand more criticism after the results have come out.   The survey should aim to provide answers to the following questions: 

1. What are the reasons why people come to the U.S.?  2. 
2. How do immigrants, both illegal and legal, get here?
3. How do immigrants gain employment?
4. What are illegal immigrants' wages compared to U.S. citizens?
5. What is the cost of an U.S. Citizen worker compared to a illegal immigrant worker?
6. What are industries that attract the most illegal immigrants?
7. What are the reason why these industries are attracting so more immigrants?
8. What is the percentage of illegal immigrants that use public services?
9. What is the percentage of illegal immigrants that pay taxes?
10. What is the percentage of illegal immigrants that would want to reside here permanently? (if they could travel more freely back to country of origin)

Based on the result of the survey, congress should then pass laws that would address the situation accordingly.  The laws should be passed and implemented gradually. For example, if the survey/study shows that a guest work program is necessary, we should pass a law to introduce one, get it up and running (well as well as anything in the fed gov can get up and running), before passing another law.  The gov is having problems enforcing the laws on the books as it is, passing new laws will not not make the immigration problem disappear.

This plan of mine seems a bit unrealistic and would take a while to implement, but we have to start thinking of immigration the same way we think of terrorism.  It's always going to be around all we can do is curtail it.  Short term and reactionary thinking is not the way to go.

Currently listening to: The Swell Season

I fumbled on today's album while listening to a review  of the movie once (IMDB, Trailer) on NPR.  The music in the background caught my fancy so I decided to Google the movie and find out if it had a soundtrack.  I found that it did, but it will not be released till Tuesday.  Clearly I didn't want to settle for that.  After a bit more digging, I discovered that the main characters of the movies, played by Glen Hansard of The frames and Marketa Irglova, had previously collaborated on an album titled The Swell Season.  As always, I used good ' ole Rhapsody to find the album and take a listen.  After all that digging around, the album did not disapoint.  It's pretty much the type of music I enjoy listening to at all times.  It's very Damien Rice-esque.  Great Lyrics, great accoustic guitar play accompanied with various instruments.  The voices on both artists compliment so well to create soothing and relaxing music that would leave you feeling very composed in the middle of a hurricane.  I enjoyed every track on the ablum but my favorites were Falling Slowly and This Low.  I would def recommened buying the entire CD.  It's worth mentioning also that The frames stuff is also good.

NPR Says:

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova never set out to make a record: The two musicians had toured Europe together on and off, but that was mostly to provide a break from Hansard's long-running main band, The Frames. Then Hansard and Irglova were approached to record a pair of songs for a Czech film -- and given four days in the studio, which they spent recording enough material for a full record, complete with the accompaniment of strings.

The result is 10 quietly brilliant songs, each built around piano, acoustic guitar, violin, cello and the two headliners' soft, sweet voices. Serious emotion bubbles beneath the melodies: The songs are optimistic in spots, but more often somber or desolate. Named for a work by one of Hansard's favorite Czech authors, The Swell Season is a lovely sleeper -- and a must for Frames fans as they await the 2007 release of the Irish band's The Cost.

[David Dye]

Technorati tags: music, Glen Hansard, Marketa Irgolove, Once, The swell seaon

Currently listening to...

I would like to apologize for the not doing an entry the past two Fridays. Commitments...well not this week. 

With the coming out of the Spiderman 3, I figured I should check out the album.  Say what you want about big production movies, but I like them because they come with video, soundtrack, happy meal toy and fashion items all at the same time. Now that's marketing... With the line up including the Snow Patrol, The Killers and Jet, I really expected more from the album.  These groups pulled up their weight and made a great half of the soundtrack but the rest of the bands definitely dropped the ball.  The black Mountain and The Flaming Lips sounded high and like they were preaching hippie love of the sixties. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just not what I'm looking for a in a superhero soundtrack.  The most out of place song on the album is The Twist by Chubby Checker... yes, it's the song you're thinking of.  My favorite son on the soundtrack has to be Signal Fire by Snow Patrol (youtube video. same as below).  I wouldn't recommend this CD. Just get the good tracks on Itunes or something. Complete let down compare to the soundtrack of the Spiderman 2.  

Rhapsody says:

Spider-Man 3 touches on the subject of duality. When a mysterious black suit brings out the evil side of our hero, he is caught between two opposing personas. Fitting then that the soundtrack features a similar duality. Sensitive-guy anthems like Snow Patrol's "Signal Fire" and introspective ballads like Simon Dawes' "Scared Of Myself" provide an emotional side to the soundtrack. This contrasts nicely with a harder-rocking selection of songs including "Pleased To Meet You," a meaty new tune by Wolfmother, and the Killers' muscular "Move Away."

[Eric Shea]