detroit news

Despite the diversionary race speech by Barack Obama, the praise and defense of Obama’s spiritual advisor Reverend Jeremiah Wright continues. From Detroit:

• Four Japanese ISPs have agreed to temporarily disconnect from their networks file sharers who fail to react to notifications and stop sharing infringing content. In some cases people may have their their service-provision contracts canceled. No time line was given in the report.

This week I wrote about the Sonny Corleone of local journalism, none other than Tennessean editor Mark Silverman who recently hurled a newspaper at features editor Cindy Smith, though as far as we know he didn't pummel his brother-in law.

• Though December is usually a time of many important new releases, last week was really slow. (Other than Christmas, Tuesdays near holidays tend to be avoided for a new album launch.) The top 49 albums are all holdovers. Josh Groban's Noel increased 33% to 539,000 units. Due to a profile on "60 Minutes," The Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden jumped 70% to #2 313,000. Alicia Keys' As I Am fell a spot to #3 with sales of 357,000. The week's best debut was Pitbull's The Boatlift with 22,000 u