Posts by Simon Grigg
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Russell Brown,
Meanwhile, things are turning bad again in Iraq
Apart from a brief respite around 2009 it's been pretty relentlessly fucking awful there for the people who were allegedly freed since 2004 or so.
On top of the bombings almost 3 million are still sitting in semi-permanent refugee camps in Jordan and Syria, half the schools and hospitals remain closed or operating at skeleton levels, power is patchy with Baghdad averaging 6 hours a day, a brutally thugish government with roaming paramilitaries is in power and women's and religious rights are are worse than they have ever been in an independent Iraq. That aside it all worked out well.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Stephen R,
I haven’t seen any evidence beyond the victims being on the rebel side.
Colin Powell has some vials of white powder he'd like to discuss with you.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Russell Brown,
I'm resigned to the punitive strikes and hope that they impair the regime without killing many civilians.
The awful problem is that it probably isn't where it ends though. There is also the fact that Assad has substantially more advanced weaponry than any opponent the US faced in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, and none of those ended well for the nations being 'freed'. This gets bigger and nastier quickly as it always has done, partially because air strikes will achieve little aside from making the West feel like it's done its bit. They're very unlikely to make a military, tactical or political impact in Assad's world.
Doing nothing is horrible too but when your own military experts (both past and present) are warning against the adventure it's hard to see a positive outcome.
Tony Blair's imperialist words yesterday also make my stomach churn:
Western policy is at a crossroads: commentary or action; shaping events or reacting to them ... It is time we took a side: the side of the people who want what we want; who see our societies for all their faults as something to admire
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Hard News: Friday Music: Bright pastel…, in reply to Samuel Scott,
I appreciated it as much as any of the excellent Clean gigs I have seen
I feel terrible, but I was hunting for the 'like' link on that.
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One for me and Simon Grigg. An acid classic nicely reworked
Ohhh, just spotted this. Nice (and saved...)
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Hard News: Friday Music: I'm Over The Edge, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Yes please Ian :)
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Hard News: Friday Music: Reinventing Beatles, in reply to matthew bannister,
I looked into this issue further – mechanical licences as issued by APRA only cover “hard” copies produced for sale – eg as a CD. Digital reproductions (even for streaming only) need a different licence
Yes, streaming in another thing altogether, you are correct. However, if you just release the album, via CD or iTunes etc you're covered. There are literally millions of cover versions on iTunes alone and that's how they're there. I had a case recently where one track I control was covered and the writer hated the cover, so we looked into this at the time. There was nothing we could do.
Streaming is another whole ballgame and you do need those sorts of licenses to allow you to do it, even to play track previews on many online stores (although that's grey still).
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Hard News: Friday Music: Reinventing Beatles, in reply to matthew bannister,
But if other people support me, maybe I’ll just do it anyway
I've not heard the album Matthew but if you are just covering and interpreting the songs in your unique way, they can't sue you.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Reinventing Beatles, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Doesn’t the songwriter and their record company/publisher have some sort of opt-out / veto power though?
Not if you do a cover. None. And why would a record company have any say at all?
ISTR Billy Bragg’s “Route A13” having been blocked from release by Chuck Berry?
You mean Bobby Troup? It contained a substantial lyric change (to 'Route 66') so it was no longer just a cover.
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Oh, and that SJD mix is just wonderful. Great song, perfectly re-realised.