Bid to ban "extremist" U.S. cartoon

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By Chris Baldwin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prosecutors in Russia want to ban the award-winning satirical U.S. cartoon South Park, calling the series "extremist" after receiving viewer complaints, a spokeswoman said Monday.

South Park, a cartoon aimed at adults and featuring a group of nine-year olds in a Colorado ski town, has courted controversy from its 1997 debut, parodying celebrities, politicians, religion, gay marriage and Saddam Hussein.

Basmanny regional prosecutors office spokeswoman Valentina Titova said investigators filed a motion after deciding an episode broadcast on Moscow television station 2x2 in January "bore signs of extremist activity."

"In accordance with the conclusions made by experts from the court investigations committee, a claim has been filed against 2x2 for its broadcast of an episode of South Park," Titova said.

South Park has won two Emmy Awards and was first shown on the U.S. Comedy Central network. It is dubbed into Russian and rebroadcast on local networks, including 2x2, a channel which broadcasts animated series in Moscow and St Petersburg.

A representative for 2x2 was not immediately available for comment.

The Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith had asked prosecutors to ban South Park after it said 20 experts had studied the show for its effect on young viewers.

The group's leader, Konstantin Bendas, said "South Park is just one of many cartoons that need to be banned from open broadcast...as it insults the feelings of religious believers and incites religious and national hatred."

"Our complaint is against a lot of cartoons, but this one was from South Park season three, episode 15," he said.

The episode, called "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" on the cartoon's website www.southparkstudios.com, first aired in December, 1999, and features the cast singing Christmas carols.

"It's one thing if they are on cable TV and viewers pay money and make a conscious choice. But young children should not be able to turn on the TV after school and watch this. They need to be defended," Bendas said.

Russia passed a 2006 law widening the definition of extremism to include "the abasement of national dignity" and "inciting religious and national hatred," which backers say was needed to stem a wave of violence aimed at ethnic minorities.

(Editing by Matthew Jones)

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Clever commercial, Comcast...but you're wrong

Posted by Peter Glaskowsky

This post will no doubt confuse those who accused me of taking money from Comcast for writing last week's piece on Comcast's Internet usage cap.

If it helps them feel better, they have my permission to suppose that DirecTV offered me a larger bribe. It isn't true, but they don't seem to care about the truth, anyway.

But those of you who have read some of my even earlier posts may have noticed that I'm not exactly happy with Comcast, and that while I get my Internet access from Comcast, I actually get my TV service from DirecTV, a company I happen to like a lot. (Even though it disappoints me sometimes, I pay my DirecTV bill every month--and the company has never paid me a dime.)

So when Comcast picks a fight with DirecTV, I'm not just going to stand idly by.

In this case, it's a fight over which television provider offers more high-definition programming.

Comcast is currently running a clever commercial based on a fictitious game show called "You might think DirectTV has more HD than Comcast...but you're wrong."

In this show, contestants are asked whether Comcast or DirecTV offers more HD "choices" in a given place and time--for example, in Chicago at 7:12pm.

The answer, according to Comcast, is always Comcast. (I'm as shocked as you are!)

The trick here is that Comcast includes all of its On Demand content and comes up with the entirely artificial figure of 500 "choices." So this comparison has a factual basis...but it's still wrong.

It seems to me that the more relevant comparisons--the ones that would actually be useful to customers trying to choose between these services--involve the number of channels and the total amount of programming available on Comcast and DirecTV.

Based on my own research, the channel comparison goes overwhelmingly to DirecTV by a score of 88 to 35, for channels from external providers.

The 35 HD channels on Comcast's "All Channel" list for Cupertino, Calif., sorted by channel name:

A&E - HD, ABC Family - HD, AMC - HD, Animal Planet - HD, Cinemax - HD, CNN - HD, Discovery - HD, Discovery Science - HD, Disney - HD, ESPN - HD, ESPN2 HD, Food Network - HD, FSNBA , HBO - HD, HGTV - HD, KBCW - HD, KGO - (ABC), KNTV - (NBC), KPIX - (CBS), KQED - (PBS), KRON - (IND), KTVU - (Fox), MHD, MOJO HD, National Geography, NFL Network HD, Sci-Fi - HD, Showtime - HD, Starz! - HD, TBS HD, Theater HD, TLC - HD, TNT HD, Universal HD, VS/Golf HD

The 88 HD channels on DirecTV's "Premier" package plus local channels for the San Francisco Bay Area, also sorted by channel name:

A&E HD, ABC Family HD, Altitude HD, Animal Planet HD, Big Ten Network HD, Biography Channel HD, Bravo HD, Cartoon Network, Cinemax HD East, Cinemax HD West, CMT HD, CNBC HD+, CNN HD, CSN Bay Area HD, CSN Chicago HD, CSN Mid-Atlantic HD, CSN New England HD, CSTV HD, Discovery Channel HD, ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, ESPNews HD, Fox Business Network HD, FSN Arizona HD, FSN Cincinnati HD, FSN Detroit HD, FSN Florida HD, FSN Midwest HD, FSN North HD, FSN Northwest HD, FSN Ohio HD, FSN Pittsburgh HD, FSN Prime Ticket HD, FSN Rocky Mountain HD, FSN South HD, FSN Southwest HD, FSN West HD, Fuel TV HD, FX HD, HBO HD East, HBO HD West, HD Theater, HDNet, History Channel HD, KBCW HD (Ind), KGO HD (ABC), KNTV HD (NBC), KPIX HD (CBS), KRON HD (Ind), KTVU HD (Fox), MASN HD, MSG HD, MSG PLUS HD, MTV HD, National Geographic Channel HD, NBA.TV HD, NESN HD, NFL Network HD, NHL Network HD, Planet Green HD, Sci-Fi Channel HD, Science Channel HD, Showtime 2 HD, Showtime Extreme HD, Showtime HD, Showtime HD West, Showtime Showcase HD, SNY HD, Speed Channel HD, Spike HD, SportSouth HD, SportsTime Ohio HD, Starz Comedy HD, Starz Edge HD, Starz HD East, Starz HD West, Starz Kids & Family HD, Sun Sports HD, TBS in HD, Tennis Channel HD, The Movie Channel HD, TLC HD, TNT HD, Toon Disney HD, USA Network HD, VERSUS HD/GOLF CHANNEL HD, VH1 HD, YES HD

If we throw in the number of pay-per-view channels, the score would go even more toward DirecTV. I can't find exact figures for this comparison, but it looks as if Comcast has, at most, only a few HD pay-per-view channels, while DirecTV has dozens. (DirecTV claims a total HD channel count over 130, but I can't figure out exactly where that number comes from.)

As for the comparison in programming, well, all those extra HD channels on DirecTV carry many programs per day and hundreds per month--each. Even if we throw in the on-demand programming from Comcast, it would lose by a landslide.

The cheap trick of making a comparison at exactly 7:12 p.m. doesn't mean anything to me because you can't watch 500 channels at one time. I think the bottom line is simple: over the course of a day, week, or month, DirecTV delivers well more than twice as much HD programming as Comcast.

DirecTV has its own on-demand service now, based on Internet delivery to DirecTV high-definition DVRs. If we counted that as well, it would only extend DirecTV's advantage. But I don't think that it should count--it's a different kind of service.

This does bring up an interesting point, though. DirecTV on-demand programming would count against Comcast's usage cap, whereas Comcast's On Demand service doesn't--a point made frequently in the comments for my post last week.

But that line of argument just doesn't work for me. Comcast On Demand doesn't travel over your Internet service at all; it comes in through the digital cable service. Both services may come into your home on the same cable, but they don't share bandwidth. This ought to be obvious--even if a customer is using all the bandwidth available from Comcast's Internet service, there's no interruption to Comcast cable TV service.

In fact, you don't even need to have Comcast Internet service to get Comcast On Demand. So of course it's true that Comcast On Demand programming doesn't count against the Comcast Internet usage cap.

This doesn't mean that Comcast is giving its On Demand service an unfair advantage. It's a classic fair advantage. Comcast deployed a cable infrastructure that has enough bandwidth to carry two services; the company is entitled to run two services and treat them as separate businesses.

Some people seem uncomfortable with the idea of businesses having rights, but this is equally a question of individual rights. Comcast has rights because Comcast's stockholders, managers, and employees have rights. In this case, these rights include setting the terms and conditions for the company's services. If it was your company, you'd insist on the same freedom.

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6 Guitar Solos That Will Melt Your Face Off

A few weeks ago I gave everyone a sneak peak of an upcoming guitar solo called Octane. Since then many people have asked me about where some of my influences for it came from; here’s a look at some face melting guitar solos that inspired me.

Eruption – Van Halen

This solo was the turning point that made me and a million other guitarists want to get good. It has everything; tone, feel, speed, and melody and will live on as one of the greatest solo rock guitar pieces ever composed.

Frenzy – Paul Gilbert

This solo is so rare, I doubt anyone has heard of it. It was my introduction to what is called ‘sweep picking,’ a technique used to generate a lot of speed through playing broken chords or arpeggios. You can hear the influence of this solo in Octane during the middle section.

Listen to Frenzy by Paul Gilbert/Racer X

Mean Street Intro – Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen seemed to always have a cool little guitar ditty on every new CD. This one steals the bass player’s funk slap technique and combines it with some wicked tapped harmonics creating a crazy sounding lick. The first part of Octane was definitely composed with this in mind.

Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower

The authority and feel that Hendrix has over the guitar is mind blowing on this from the melodic phrasing of the intro solo to the psychedelic middle section, this was groundbreaking stuff and still sounds great today.

Eric Johnson – Cliffs Of Dover

I used to play this in the nightclubs back when I was in cover bands for kicks. That was the early 90s when guitar solos were all the rage. Aside from the pain of having to practice it every day for 5 hours just to be able to play it each night, I still think the song is a fantastic piece of work by an amazingly talented and original guitarist in Eric Johnson. Check it out!

Joe Satriani – Satch Boogie

This song has a great vibe and energy and the middle section has some very cool chord arpeggios. Joe Satriani’s left hand is amazing and definitely influenced my legato style of playing which can be heard on the last section of Octane.

Octane solo

Octane - Fear Zero from Ken Mason on Vimeo.

This solo was written as a request from my management team so I came up with it one evening and had to practice it a lot before I got it sounding the way it sounds now.

It was recorded on my mongrel reverse Strat style body with a Warmoth neck directly into my Mesa Boogie Trem-o-verb combo that was powering a Marshall 1960 4X12 cabinet and I used an MXR phase 90 into the amp from my guitar.

The solo has several different techniques I like to use on occasion. The intro is a slap style tapping piece, kinda similar to a riff I did in a song called “Drown Myself” from the first self-titled Fear Zero CD.

The second section is basically a combination of sweeping arpeggios followed by scalar runs in the key of Em. The final section is a hand buster and was all done with the index and pinky finger on my fret hand. I was trying to outline some simple triad chord changes over the pedal tone “D.”

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