Kevin Cogill, probably more known as Skwerl over at music blog Antiquiet, where he leaked 9 Guns n’ Roses songs from the upcoming album Chinese Democracy, was arrested by the FBI this morning. According to the blog, the FBI picked him up early, and Antiquiet had decided not to make a big deal about it, that is, until LA Times picked it up. That sparked the follow-up post where we learn that Kevin was released at a $10,000 bail, and that the preliminary hearing has been scheduled for September 17, at 4:30 PM.

Antiquiet clearly isn’t laying the blame on Guns n’ Roses man himself, Axl Rose, as one might’ve expected:

Axl Rose didn’t call the FBI, but today it became more than obvious that someone really was serious about that threat. Johnny and I sat on a pew in the U.S. District Court building in Downtown L.A. as Skwerl sat behind glass, in handcuffs, and still in his jammies since the FBI arrested him at 6:59 this morning.

The actual case will be interesting, since Kevin have confessed to leaking the songs to the public he won’t walk out of this one, however, the sentence might be something else, given the hype around the album. Still, while Kevin did make the songs available, what about all of those torrents out there? This is the music industry looking for a scapegoat if you ask me. Then again, they always are…

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As deficits impede the government from improving and repairing roads, bridges and airports, they are becoming increasingly amenable to the idea of a partnership with the private sector. Of late, big banks like Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are starting to take an interest in financing massive infrastructure projects.

Jaiku has found its way back online, now hosted at the Google datacenters, but not within the Google Apps Engine as was rumored. From the official blog post:

We’ve now moved Jaiku to a Google data center. This is something that we’d planned to do anyway, as part of our future transition to Google App Engine.

Jaiku is still running its original engine, however, there are some news, like a new TOS and unlimited invites. I didn’t know they were scarce?

• Jaiku Joins the Google Cloud?
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1. It will change your life. Seriously. It will show you (not tell you), through extraordinary true stories, how to live your life more intentionally. How to stop doing what's merely urgent and start doing what's really important, to you. How to become who you really are, and do what you were intended to do. It will empower you, not by telling you what to do, but by making you believe, passionately, that you can be better, can do more, can be more authentically yourself. And how to start.
2. It's enormous fun. Patti is funny. Her stories (some about her own life, some those of people she knows) are more than instructional, they are entertaining. This book will make you laugh, cry, and do lots of other things you didn't think you would or could do. It will move you.
3. It is extraordinarily well written. If you are a writer, and want to learn how to write well, this is your model. Every word in this book counts. There are no false notes. The stories are surrounded by stunning colour graphics submitted by dozens of different artists on the stories' themes, and by quotes and poems that are such perfect complements to the stories that you will treasure the book just for its collection of the most succinct and powerful turns of phrase on subjects that matter you will find anywhere. A 200-page bravura performance of clear, precise, concise, transporting prose.

I’ve been using Disqus on my WordPress blog for a few months now, and just installed their new version 2.0.1. I thought I’d run down the installation experience and some of the new features for those curious about Disqus.

After signing up at the Disqus website, you’ll download a Disqus plug in for your blogging platform (WordPress, MovableType, Tumblr, Blogger, or TypePad). I use WordPress, so there’s a WordPress plug in that must be installed in the usual fashion. Once installed, the Disqus settings appear under the Comments > Disqus area of the WordPress admin.

After installing 2.0.1, Disqus said it would run in “legacy mode” until I imported all my old comments into Disqus. There’s an “Import” button under Advanced Options. When I first clicked the “Import” button, it took a while for Disqus to copy all my comments to the Disqus servers and process them (I had about 4000). But after an hour or so, the comments began appearing on my blog in the proper place beneath the associated posts.

Controlling the look of the comments on your blog is done at the Disqus website - under Admin > Settings there is an area called apperance.

Some features I really like:

• You can moderate comments via email. Whenever I get a comment I’m sent an email to which I can respond with a reply of my own, or reply with “Remove” to delete the comment.
• You can access the Disqus website from a window within the WordPress admin.
• Disqus comments are now indexable by search engines meaning they’re SEO friendly.
• Users can “claim” old comments. When I initially set up Disqus I cautiously set it up so only new comments would use the Disqus service. Because Disqus associates comments with a Disqus profile based on the email address, users can “claim” an old comment by visiting your blog, moving the cursor over the name next to a comment, and clicking “unclaimed profile” in the pop up window. On the next page, click “claim profile” and an email will be sent to the email address left with that comment (which you should have access to). That sounds kind of complicated, but once you claim any email address with your Disqus profile, any of the associated comments tracked by Disqus are instantly linked up.
• Finally, I’m concerned about data portability and there are some improvements in that area. Disqus doesn’t toss out the existing comments in your WordPress install - they are all still there untouched, in case you decide to deactivate the Disqus plugin. New comments left using Disqus will appear in your WordPress installation also. Lastly, there is an Export feature allowing you to get all your comments out of Disqus. Just log into Disqus and go to Tools > Export to download all your blog’s comments in one XML file.

Anyhow, as you can tell, I’ve been very pleased with Disqus. The best part about the service is comment moderation is much easier on my blog which means more time for blogging.

• NYT Launches Olympics Blog, Takes Interesting Approach
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Earlier this year, the Fed slashed interest rates to 2%, a figure that remained unchanged after a recent meeting. Analysts expect that the rate will not rise until some time next year.

While the Fed claims to have reduced rates to aid the floundering US housing sector, many economists believe that this will only further cripple the economy.

The 463 blog points us to an interview with Mitch Kapor of Lotus and EFF fame, in which he makes the case for a national Chief Technology Officer. The idea seems to be that technology policy in the United States is currently fragmented among a bunch of different positions, and having a designated top technologist in the government would help to bring coherence to the nation's technology policy. It sounds like a reasonable idea at first blush, but on closer examination it might create more problems than it solves.

To start with, it's important to distinguish between two jobs that are really quite different. One job is to coordinate the government's own IT infrastructure. Currently, IT decisions are made by the various federal agencies and departments within the federal government. A national CTO could conceivably set guidelines or policies related to IT infrastructure that would apply across the executive branch. The other job is to advise the president on substantive tech policy issues like network neutrality, patents, copyrights, etc. The two jobs are very different, and it's not at all clear it would make sense to have the same guy doing both. But let's consider each position in turn.

It's not clear how significant the potential savings or efficiency gains would be from having a single guy in charge of all government IT deployments. Up to a certain point, there are efficiency gains to be had from greater IT integration, but the federal government is probably so large that those economies of scale have already been exhausted. That's especially true when we consider that the different parts of the government have widely different requirements. Some parts, such as the FBI and NASA, have offices all over the country, while others are located almost entirely in Washington. Federal agencies do different kinds of work and need a wide variety of software packages. The current arrangement, in which each agency manages its own IT infrastructure, seems likely to give each agency more flexibility to choose technologies that meet its specific needs.

The idea of a designated tech policy advisor is more promising, but that also has potential downsides. A good choice could help bring coherence and vigor to a president's tech agenda, but, given enough power, a bad choice could cause just as much mischief. Therefore, if the next president does create a CTO position, he ought to limit its function to advising the president, rather than pursuing an independent policy agenda. A good model for this is the president's Council of Economic Advisors, which advises the president on economic policy and produces an annual report on the state of the economy but doesn't wield any significant authority in its own right.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.