Wednesday, March 16, 2005

A truly great day in cinematic history

Today in History - DW-World

It was 80 years ago today that boobies made their debut on film. /duffman voice/ Who wants to PARTY! /duffman voice/

Duff whole heartedly supports designated drivers

It's back!

BBC - Doctor Who - Homepage

March 26th on BBC One. Watch it if you can.

Never Again

Lawrence Lessig

So I did something today for the very last time in my life. I'm publishing a comment in the Minnesota Law Review about an article by Brett Frischmann titled "An Economic Theory of Infrastructure." His is a great article; I was happy to write the comment.

But today, on the brink of publication, I had to confront the "Publication Agreement." In order to give the Minnesota Law Review my work, I have also to give them my copyright. In particular, they get the "exclusive right to authorize the publication, reproduction, and distribution" of my work. They have in turn sold that right to Lexis and Westlaw.

Never again. It has taken me too long to resolve myself about this, and it was too late in the process of this article to insist on something different. But from this moment on, I am committed to the Open Access pledge:

I will not agree to publish in any academic journal that does not permit me the freedoms of at least a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.


Lessig is a personal hero of mine. He just gets it.

Badger badger badger badger, blog blog blog.

Badger's Bastion

Buddy of this.is.anfield

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Daily Drew

Federal Pound me in the ass prison for Bernie

Ebbers found guilty - Mar. 15, 2005

Next up, "Hi my name is Ken Lay." Bubba says, "Your my lay now, bitch."

Shutterbug -- gallery software for OS X

ShutterBug Overview

XtraLean software's Shutter Bug really makes great galleries. Besides d/ling the pics that took about five minutes to do. Nice stuff guys.

Time to write your representatives

Government Information in the Digital Age: The Once and Future
Federal Depository Library Program


The Government Printing Office wants to DRM information we've all ready paid for.

Money quote from the GPO: "10 years ago, GPO tried to charge for information distributed on the Internet, but it cost GPO more to collect the money than was made. So GPO made it free to the general public. This cannot continue. GPO needs to create a business model and bring revenues in the door so it doesn’t have to go to Congress all the time."

I understand that their goal is to avoid dependence on a fickle Congress for funding, but I have /no/ problem with my tax dollars being spent on keeping government transparent. (Ok well, making it more transparent again.)

More cracks in the GOP front

The New York Times > Washington > G.O.P. Rebellion Threatens to Derail Efforts to Adopt Budget

True conservatives vs. neo cons. Go go fiscally responsible Republicans.

More from Fargus

Gay Marriage

Fargus on gay marriage. Did I mention that I like this guy?

Monday, March 14, 2005

Daily Drew

Scientifically proven unfair and imbalanced.

On Fox News, No Shortage of Opinion, Study Finds (washingtonpost.com)

That's a good idea


Start Change Now -> Stop Fake News

Like rats jumping off a sinking ship

DeLay Ethics Allegations Now Cause of GOP Concern (washingtonpost.com)

Having all ready received several ethical broadsides, the Republican party may stop serving as cannon fodder for DeLay.

More on Propagandagate

t r u t h o u t - "White House News Forgeries Widespread"

"Hundreds" of fake news stories have been fobbed off on us as news. Everyone from the Administration to the local news media should be ashamed of themselves.

Steak and BJ Day

Steak and BJ Day

Feb. 14 -- Valentine's Day
Mar. 14 -- Steak and Blowjob day

Any questions?

The Flypaper Theory: Signing On. And On. And On.

More on information on Empire Coffee's encounter with alleged Bushie Brownshirts

Well with the Bush administrations dissent equals terrorism policies, it wouldn't suprise me. It also wouldn't suprise me if these are Bush supporters illegally posing as federal agents. Neo cons don't believe in free speech.

The New Doctor Who

SPOILERS!


It's back. It's real. And it's fabulous.

I just finished watching the first episode of the new Doctor Who. It's spot on perfect. They've reworked it a little. Looks like standard hour long drama format instead of serials, but still Christopher Eccelsteen is great. The new companion is teh hot, and they actually shot the scene every Doctor Who fan has always secretly wanted -- The Doctor asking you point blank and wantingly "Hey did I mention this thing can go anywhere in the universe? Wanna go?"

It's all on film. BBC, you're so cute. Special effects... about what you'd expect from Doctor Who. Bad. But cheesy good bad. See Rose's boyfriend get eaten by trash can. Watch The Doctor argue with a CGI lava pit. Yeah I said it. CGI mother fucker CGI! Lot's of it. Some of it good. All of it cheesy. This is plastic people. We going out T2 style. Blade hands and "I'll be back."

Plot: suitably ridiculous. The Autons are back. If that means anything to you, congratz you are a major fucking geek. Entire episode shot in London. Reminds me of the early third Doctor days when the TARDIS was grounded and he had to stay on earth. We got invaded weekly back then.

Eccelsteen reminds me physically of Peter Davison (5th Doctor, cricket uniform) but plays it more like a cross between Pertwee and Baker. Baker's (4th Dr. The Doctor as far as I'm concerned. One word. Scarf) goofy humor and physical mannerisms. Pertwee's (3rd Doctor, Nice suit) penchant for violence and physical action... just smack the problem around a little bit.

Billie Piper, Rose the companion, is pouty hot with a made for porn body. Thick butt and nice rack, DSL, and blonde highlights. Nice. There is sex in this Doctor Who. Rose's Mom (who almost has it going on) straight up propositions the Doctor. Rose has a boyfriend. His job is to cower like a bitch and paw at her breasts. They may drop it, but there is definite sexual tension between Rose and The Doctor. They've done that before with Tegan and Peter D (or maybe they were just fucking on the set).

She finds information on The Doctor on the Internet. Sweet. Goes to meet and Internet conspiracy buff. Funny. He's normal (and correct as it turns out). He goes out Slingblade style. There is much death.

Friday, March 11, 2005

B4B Blog

Blog for Billionaires | Bottom-Up Communication for a Top-Down World.

Billionaires for Bush have a blog now. These guys are hilarious yo.

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.:

"Once upon a time, it was easy for the American Right to smear its opponents on the left -- they could simply equate them with the nation's communist enemies. It didn't matter that the American 'left' (Democrats) had more in common with the Right than international communism, the smear was useful.

Now, however, our international enemy -- Islamic radicalism -- is actually the polar opposite of what liberals stand for -- their actions on women rights are deplorable, they insist on theocracy, they loooveee torture and the death penalty, they demand to control the culture (TV, movies, music), they rail against rampant sexuality, they seek to spread their ideology via force, and they have a well-defined black-and-white sense of truth.

Remind you of a certain American party?

That's why hysterical assertions by the wingers that liberals hate America and want the terrorists to win are so absurd. As absurd as it would've been to claim that Reagan wanted the Communists to win the Cold War. The Taliban/Al Qaida/Hezbollah/Jihadists of the world are the exact embodiment of evil in the liberal mind. They are everything we are against, and against everything we are for.

In fact, they are exactly what we see in the Republican Party as the GOP continues to consolidate power -- creeping theocracy, moralizing, us versus them, embrace of torture, the need to constantly declare jihad on someone, hysterics over football-game nipples, control over 'decency' on the airwaves, lyrics censorship, hostility to women freedoms, curtaling of civil liberties, and so on.

So it's pretty obvious -- we don't love terrorists. We don't want them to win. For them to win would be to realize our greatest fears. The muslim terrorist is truly the anti-liberal. Like matter and anti-matter.

Republicans, on the other hand, hate the terrorists because they're Muslim. But aside from that, they've got far more in common than they'll ever admit to themselves.

And it's high time we started to make that connection more forcefully."


Damn straight Kos.