Joey and Lee talk about the recent tragedy on the East Coast and what it means for Obama. And Joey's friend Loubs calls in with the update from North Bergen.  Finally, Lee's most uncomfortable moment in life caught on tape. Words cannot describe what takes place.

Streamed live on 10/31/2012

Joey and Lee are back. Joey talks about losing his dear friend Marilyn, the movie Once Upon a Time in the West, and some of the famous singers the Joey cannot stand. Joey's friend Mike calls in to talk about elections in North Bergen.

Streamed live on 11/05/2012

Joey and Lee talk about the election, tattoos, weight loss and much more. George from MMA junkie calls in to talk about health and give some UFC picks. Hear where network tv was 25 years ago.

Streamed live on 11/07/2012

Joey and Lee talk about his trips to Chicago and San Diego, Joey's regret about not joining the armed forces, and Music from the Santana Brothers. Joeys friend, also named Joey, calls back to talk about reading his dad's name at the Vietnam memorial and to tell North Bergen Stories.

Recorded live on 11/11/12

Joey and Lee talk about the upcoming anniversary of Joey kidnapping the guy with a machine gun. They also talk about dating, thank you notes, and the reason why Joey picks some movies over others. The Machine, Bert Kreischer joins us on the podcast today. Dont miss it.

Streamed live on 11/15/2012 

Joey is back from a weekend in Arizona. Joey talks about his feelings on immigrants speaking English, the situation in Israel, and weight loss. Speaking of weight loss Mike Dolce of the Dolce Diet calls in. Check out his holiday recipe book and his website the dolediet.com. Also check out our sponsor Onnit.com, maker of Alpha Brain, new Mood and much much more. Use the code "Church" for a special discount.

11/19/2012

Happy Thanksgiving! Joey and Lee talk about a dream Joey had, Joey getting way too high, and Rodney Dangerfield. An amazing call from Alex, Joey's roommate in the halfway house makes for an amazing podcast.

Visit Onnit.com and use the promo code CHURCH for a special discount

Streamed live on 11/21/2012

Joey and Lee talk about Thanksgivng, Marvin Gaye, and Football on another Sunday gambling addition. Danny B calls back in and tells stories about his brother and also seeing Amare Stodamire. We also have our first podcast with two calls. Joey's friend Jimmy calls in. Jimmy was the person who orignally convinced Joey to move to Colorado.

This episode is brought to you by Onnit.com. Use promo code CHURCH to get a special discount.

Streamed live on 11/25/2012

Joey and Lee talk about Joey's marriage and his recent anniversary, working out, Jiu Jitsu and the Charles Bronson movie Hard TImes. Einstein from 10th Planet West LA calls in and gives Joey and Lee work out advice.

The podcast is sponsored by Onnit.com, use the code CHURCH for a discount at checkout.

Streamed live on 11/26/2012

Hey Guys. Joey and Lee talk about Angus Jone's comments and how Joey feels about content on tv. You might be surprised to hear what he has to say. They also talk about Joey's Go Daddy commercial and the commercial process, and finally we have a surprise visit from Joey's wife. Guest Tim Donaghy calls in to talk about his time as an NBA ref and what led to him being sent to jail for betting on games.

This podcast is brought to you by Onnit.com Use the promo code CHURCH for a discount.

Streamed live on 11/28/2012

Joey and Lee talk about Joey's time in Vegas, Ozzy Osbourne's birthday, focusing on what's important to you and some Cuban music. Dont miss today's caller, UFC ref Herb Dean. 

Today's show is sponsored by Onnit.com. Use The promo code CHURCH for a discount at checkout.

Streamed live on 12/03/12

Joey and Lee talk about the Son's of Anarchy Finale, taking chances in life, and we get another surprise visit from Mrs. Diaz. Joey also shows everyone where he got the saying, "Stay Black" from. Joey's friend Sal Polisi calls in to talk about his new book and his time in the mob. 

This show is brought to you by Onnit.com Use the Promo code CHURCH for an extra discount.

Streamed live on 12/05/12

Joey and Lee talk about Boxing, the UFC and the comedy club Joey works out at when hes in Los Angeles. Joey also does a preview of his love for Mel Brooks movies, which will be talked about in future episodes.

Old friend Danny B calls in

This podcast is sponsored by Onnit. Use the promo code church for a discount.

Streamed live on 12/10/12

Comedian Ralphie May calls in to talk about his weight loss. Danny B's brother Gary calls in to talk about his 21 year stint in prison.

The show is brought to you by Onnit. Use Promo Code church for a discount at check out.

Streamed live on 12/12/2012

Jeremy from Ball Cancer Sucks calls in to talk and the Machine Bert Kreischer also calls in from Denver.

This podcast is brough to you by Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a discount.

Streamed live on 12/17/2012

Ralphie May and his Daughter call in from Nashville with a special message for Joey. Juliana from Auntie Dolores edibles calls in to talk about her journey and how she got started in this industry. 

This podcast is brought to you by Onnit.com. Use Promo code Church for a discount when you check out.

Streamed live on 12/19/2012

Danny B calls in with more stories about his brother. Duncan Trussell calls in to talk about his recent battle with cancer.

This podcast is brought to you by Onnit.com Use Promo code CHURCH for a discount.

Streamed live on 12/23/12.

No guests today. Joey and Lee solo on the last Church of the year. Thank you very much for an amazing start and we'll be back strong in 2013!

This podcast is brough to you by Onnit.com Use the Promo code CHURCH for a discount.

Streamed live on 12/24/2012

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Panel on Patents, moderated by Karen Sandler, with Ciarán O'Riordan, Benjamin Henrion, and Deb Nicholson from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:35)

• This American Life issued a retraction of the story we mentioned on 0x24. This American Life released a transcript or mp3 of the audio of the retraction. (02:21)
• Karen and Bradley introduce the panel.

Segment 1 (03:58)

This is the recording of the panel. Some of the questions aren't completely audible, but Dan did a pretty good job boosting it in places.

Segment 2 (32:21)

• IBM's amicus brief in Bilski clearly shows that IBM is pro-software patent. (33:48)
• The Linux System Definition which defines the only patents available for licensing by OIN licensees, was unilaterally updated recently without consulting the Free Software community.
• Keith Bergelt of OIN will speak at Linux Collaboration 2012 on the Legal track, which Bradley is chairing (35:29)
• OIN is a for-profit company. (37:54)
• IBM has attacked Free Software projects with patents, such as TurboHercules (39:22)
• IBM is the largest software patent holder in the world. (44:27)
• Red Hat refuses to grant a patent license for patent use in Free software, they have only a weak promise that allows them to sell of patents to others who may enforce against Free Software projects, or which could be revoked. (46:26)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Michael Meeks's FOSDEM 2012 talk, Risks and Benefits of Copyright Assignment from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:35)

Bradley and Karen introduce Michael's talk.

Segment 1 (01:56)

Michael's slides are available from faif.us and from his blog post on the talk.

Segment 2 (26:47)

• Bradley mentioned GNU Mediagoblin as an example of a true upstream multi-copyright-holder AGPLv3'd project. (28:10)
• Bradley mentioned that LibreOffice is “wealthy” as well by Michael Meeks standards, given their successful fundraisers. (29:38)
• Bradley mentioned the Desktop Summit panel that he and Michael were on and Karen moderated. (34:06)
• Bradley and Michael co-authored (with Vincent Untz) the GNOME Copyright Assignment Guidelines. (35:30)
• FSF was previously supportive of MySQL AB back in 2002, but Michael also used to support the Sun JCA. (38:20)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Allison Randal's FOSDEM 2012 talk, FLOSSing for Good Legal Hygiene: Stories from the Trenches from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:35)

Bradley talked about the #faif IRC conversation regarding hot milk recipe and its copyright. (01:54)

Segment 1 (07:10)

Allison's slides are available from faif.us.

Segment 2 (35:00)

• Karen and Bradley discussed the insanely complicated poster that Eclipse developers have to put on their walls to know how to accept patches (37:40)
• RMS's GNU Project essay talks about the Qt problem. (39:16)
• Bradley mentioned Chris Hertel's appearance on Linux Outlaws.(44:25)
• Karen mentioned The Scientific American article entitled Secret Computer Code Threatens Science. (54:00)
• Bradley mentioned Roland McGrath (56:44)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Loïc Dachary's FOSDEM 2012 talk, Can for-profit companies enforce copyleft without becoming corrupt like MySQL AB? from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:35)

Bradley and Karen discuss FOSDEM again.

Segment 1 (10:10)

Unfortunately, we don't have Loïc's slides.

Segment 2 (32:03)

Bradley and Karen comment on Loïc's talk.

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Richard Fontana's Linux Collaboration Summit 2012 talk, The Decline of the GPL, and What To Do About It.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:36)

Karen mentioned a legal summit where Richard and Karen spoke; the same event where the organizers said having Bradley speak would be the same as having the caterers speak.

Segment 1 (04:46)

Fontana's slides for this talk are available on Fontana's website.

Note that this talk is a longer version of Ricahrd Fontana's FOSDEM 2012 talk, The (possible) decline of the GPL, and what to do about it from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Segment 2 (57:24)

Bradley and Karen discuss Fontana's talk.

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Philippe Laurent's FOSDEM 2012 talk, Open Licences before European Courts from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:36)

Karen and Bradley mention there is one talk remaining after this one from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Segment 1 (03:04)

Philippe's slides are available from faif.us. Note: the slides are licensed differently than the show: they are CC-By-SA-3.0-Unported (rather than -USA).

Segment 2 (32:22)

• Bradley mentioned FSF France's involvement with the AFPA case. (37:30)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Mike Linksvayer's FOSDEM 2012 talk, Creative Commons 4.0 licenses and other opportunities for FLOSS/free culture legal/policy intersections from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:38)

Bradley and Karen suggest that you use the slides below when listening to Mike's talk.

Segment 1 (05:51)

Mike Linksvayer's slides for this talk are available in PDF format and in ODP format.

Segment 2 (33:43)

Segment 3 (34:25)

A special licensing message from Mike Linksvayer.

Segment 4 (35:09)

• Karen mentioned Bradley's favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life.
• Bradley mentioned Asheesh Laroia, who appears to never blogged about his CC/credit-card-thief freenode confusion story. (48:00)
• Bradley mentioned Fontana's Copyleft.next project . (50:00)
• Bradley mentioned the ST:TNG episode, Unification, Part II, although he kept calling it Reunification during the episode. Please don't write in to complain; he realized the error after recording. (54:39)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley discuss OSCON and GUADEC.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:36)

• Bradley represents FSF on the GNOME Advisory Board. (02:20)
• Bradley points out it's very dangerous when you can buy voting rights of a 501(c)(3) by paying money, such as the structure of OSI. Karen notes that contribution-based membership works very well for GNOME. (03:50)
• Bradley is concerned about the future of OSI's license list now that votes in OSI are for sale. (04:30)
• Bradley received an O'Reilly Open Source Award at OSCON 2012. Bradley blogged an acceptance speech for the award. (08:50)
• The Python award and the Perl White Camel award is also given at OSCON. (12:35)
• Karen mentioned FLOSS Foundations, and asked if there was a meeting at OSCON. Bradley mentioned it had been primarily rolled into Jono Bacon's CLS conference. (15:10)

Segment 1 (17:56)

• Bradley wrote in a post about the GUADEC 2010 conference to note how welcoming the community was. Karen described GUADEC 2012 as very similar in nature. (21:25)
• Karen mentioned her husband Mike had a similar reaction to GUADEC 2012 that Bradley had to GUADEC 2010. (23:50)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Matthew Garrett's talk, Linux in a UEFI Secure Boot World talk from LinuxCon North America 2012.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:34)

• Bradley mentioned that people at LinuxCon North America 2012 were talking about this article, wherein it states 51% of survey respondents believe [bad] weather can impact cloud computing. Bradley and Karen pointed out all the many ways that it can, such as if your services come via satellite links. (02:10)
• Bradley mentioned Matthew's talk might be best listened to before our earlier FaiFCast 0x2d about UEFI and Restricted Boot, as Matthew's talk is a very good introduction to that material (07:01)

Segment 1 (08:43)

The slides from Matthew Garrett's LinuxCon North America 2012 talk, Linux in a UEFI Secure Boot World are available.

Segment 2 (51:35)

• Karen song a part of one of the OpenBSD songs, E-Railed (OpenBSD Mix). (01:00:35)
• Bradley mentioned Theo de Raadt's comments regarding restricted boot. (01:00:44)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Richard Fontana's LinuxCon North America 2012 talk, The Tragedy of the Commons Gatekeepers.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:33)

Bradley and Karen introduce Richard Fontana's talk.

Segment 1 (02:48)

Richard Fontana's slides are available online, and there is also a well-written summary of the talk available on LWN.

Segment 2 (47:15)

Karen and Bradley discuss Fontana's talk.

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Your article abstract goes here. Put the main points and key phrases at the beginning of the abstract, because it will be truncated in search results. Make your abstract enticing yet succinct. Aim for three to five sentences that express why the reader would care about the content (motive) and what he or she can gain from reading the content (benefits).

Your article abstract goes here. Put the main points and key phrases at the beginning of the abstract, because it will be truncated in search results. Make your abstract enticing yet succinct. Aim for three to five sentences that express why the reader would care about the content (motive) and what he or she can gain from reading the content (benefits).

ABC North Coast resident arts reviewer, Jeanti St Clair looks at the latest music and theatre to hit the region.

The High Court quashes the conviction of a man jailed for life over the murder of 85-year-old Liselotte Watson in 2012.

Six people have now been charged over the 2012 murder of Jason De Ieso, who was shot dead in his Pooraka workshop in Adelaide's northern suburbs. Police say he was caught in a dispute between the Finks and Hells Angels.

NMS Has Been One Of The Choice Places For Music Pros And Artists To Gather And Discuss The Future Of The Music Industry Since Its Creation In 1980

Cornel West and Tavis Smiley criticize President Barack Obama for being to the right of even President Richard Nixon. Continue reading →

TCAF site!

If you're attending, stop by and say hello!

(I don't have a table number yet but I'll be sure to announce this as soon as I know! If not, I'm sure you can find where my table is in the directory!)

EDIT: OH MAN! I almost forgot— At last Yaoi-con, there was a sweet person who had lost her voice from a cold (ah, I'm not sure if I got your name) and had printed out some TCAF info so I could attend— SWEETHEART, IF YOU READ THIS, THANK YOU! I hope to see you there!) -Hamlet

I will be in the Otakon AA at tables S01 and S02 with my buddies, Lochi and Cucoo! The Teahouse ladies will also be right next to us, so it will be a big NSFW party!

Here's our table spot!

I'll be selling everything in the Starfighter shop, INCLUDING CHAPTER 02! The t-shirts are restocked and there's some new prints, plus a beautiful new Starfighter icon neckalce - so look out for those!

(I'll also try to attend the Homestuck draw party!) Please come say hello if you're visiting the AA- I really love meeting readers and I hope to see you!♥ -Hamlet

I'll be at OTAKUTHON in Montreal, Canada, this weekend!

Here's the con site!

I'll be at table #244 in the Exhibition Hall! I'll be selling everything in the Starfighter shop, INCLUDING CHAPTER 02, plus a beautiful new Starfighter icon neckalce!

ALSO! I'll be doing a late night 18+ panel scheduled for Saturday at 11PM, in the room “Panel 7” which is room #524AB!

I hope to see you there! -Hamlet

I'll be at YAOI-CON this weekend!

My table will be in the Dealer's Room this year! I'll be selling all the usuals to be found in the site shop - plus necklaces and sticker sheets!

I'll also be doing a SPECIAL PANEL at 6pm on Saturday! Filled with prizes, some smutty sketches, and shameless flirting.

Meeting readers is seriously the best thing ever and I hope I get to see you, if you're attending! -Hamlet

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Funeral Kings (2012) Claire: 3.8/5 stars, 8/10. Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6.6/10. Jesse: 3.4/5 stars, 7/10 (I think). Native ratings: 4.1/5 stars Netflix, 6.1/10 IMDB. SLEEPER ALERT: This movie isn’t well-known at all, so I’d like to point out this might be the only time you see it mentioned. “Two altar boys decide […]

Mexico Trip October 2012 First trip with RobDay 1We headed to Atlanta at 0900 and had a nice drive down. Since we had our dive gear with us upgrading to first class was not too much more so we decided to do that and it was quite fun. We arr

Pamplona. Friday 28th Dec 2012We left Cucuta at 7.30 on a bus for Pamplona where we had planed to stay the night. The night before Bernie asked how long would it take to get from Merida to Pamplona. I did my lonely planet calcul

The Los Angeles Times' Editorial Awards for 2012 were presented in a ceremony Thursday night, honoring the newsroom's best work from the past year.

In recent years, global military expenditure has increased again and is now comparable to Cold War levels. Recent data shows global spending at over $1.7 trillion, despite the global economic conditions. It is still approximately 1% increase since 2008 when the financial crisis began, for example.

Not all nations have felt the impacts of the global financial crisis in the same way. Some have grown economically, including many Asian countries, which has allowed some of them to increase their military spending. There are geopolitical interests at stake for various powers, so economic troubles or not, military spending is seen as important to maintain, or at least to minimize possible reductions.

The highest military spender is the US accounting for 39% of the world’s spending, more than the next top 10 countries combined, and more than all its potential enemies, combined. But this represents a slight decline over previous years as other nations, especially China and Russia, increase their spending. At the same time, the US has reduced military spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while Western Europe’s austerity programs affect their military spending budgets.

This update includes new and updated figures, graphs and charts exploring this further.

Read full article: World Military Spending

The 2012 presidential race is on. Kinda.

At the moment, it feels more like a wade through treacle - so slow is the pace of President Barack Obama's opponents. Mr Obama can be unambiguous that he is going to run because they are all showing varying degrees of hesitancy.

If the president is to get back into the White House he has to leap a number of obstacles: an economy that is so sluggish that there are constant worries it could go backwards and supporters who may be unenthusiastic about sending more troops to Afghanistan, bombing Libya and failing to close Guantanamo Bay prison. There is also huge uncertainly in the country about health care and much more we will be looking at in detail.

But the strength of opposition doesn't seem, at the moment, a particularly high hurdle.  To British eyes, the primary system is one of the most curious parts of American politics.

The elite of British political parties have only grudgingly and slowly given the power of choosing their own leader. The principle of "one member, one vote" has been slow in coming. 

Elections for leaders rarely grip in the same way as American internal elections. While any American can easily register as a Republican or Democrat and have their say about who represents them, in Britain being a party member still seems an effort of will.

Twenty-five pounds ($40) per year may not be much to play your part in conservative politics in Britain, £12 may be a bargain to have a say in the Lib Dems and it's only a penny (for those under 27) to join the Labour Party - but it still costs something.

There's a feeling that being interested in who becomes your PM or MP isn't enough. You have to be willing to sit in draughty village halls on wet Wednesdays listening.  

The biggest difference is perhaps not in just who is involved, but how late in the political cycle the choice is made. This has a real impact. Every party leader, good or bad, has an image, policy likes and dislikes and personal ticks that colour voters approach to the parties as a whole.

The British public has years to get to know Ed Miliband and decide what to think about him leading a Labour government. Here in the US, the opposition is currently either faceless or hydra-headed. There is no obvious front-runner, and any prediction about who will be the Republican candidate in 2012 is nothing more than an informed guess.

Mr Obama v Michele Bachmann would be quite a different contest to Mr Obama v John Huntsman. 

Republicans get to choose, late in the day, exactly what they want their party to stand for.

The influence of the Tea Party suggests any candidate will be economically conservative, but beyond that, it is impossible to predict very much. The candidates are so unenthusiastic about firing the starting gun, the first big debate at the Reagan library in California has been put back from next month to the autumn.

Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump seem almost certain to have a go. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, John Huntsman and Mitch Daniels seem less sure bets. And, of course, there are plenty of other names out there.

Mr Obama is starting the race now to make sure that whoever challenges him, his organisation will be ramped up and ready, with big bucks at its command.

BBC Sport looks back to the 2012 FA Cup final when goals by Ramires and Didier Drogba gave Chelsea victory over Liverpool.

Amino Communications will showcase at TelcoTV 2012 in Las Vegas a new breakthrough version of its Live media gateway that delivers a powerful combination of pay-TV security and exciting Android-based OTT content delivery.

The Live media gateway is the first hybrid/OTT media gateway to be powered by the new Intel Atom CE 5300 media processor. This combines dual core processing power with a range of new enhanced transcoding and encoding capabilities with multi-screen distribution to deliver content seamlessly to TVs, smartphones and tablets around the home.

Now the product has been enhanced – with a secure Linux environment, based on Amino’s proven Aminet software stack, for the delivery of payTV video, and a controlled Android virtual machine to support a wide range of OTT applications and services. The device will utilise the unparalleled hardware virtualisation features available in the Intel CE5300 SoC to run multiple virtual machines at full speed.

TVover.net and Echo Communications are giving away 2 free Expo passes to TelcoTV 2012, Ocotber 24-26, 2012 in Las Vegas, NV, USA. The Expo pass gives you access to Exhibit Hall, Keynotes, and Vendor-Hosted Workshops. For mroe information about TelcoTV 2012 and registration, click here.

Enter to win by emailing us at media@tvover.net with subject line 'TelcoTV 2012 raffle', name, email, company, address and phone number by noon CST, October 21, 2012. The winner will be randomly drawn.

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