Slouching Towards Oblivion

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Censorship

Intellectual property is an important thing.  You have a reasonable expectation to own your work, and to profit from it.

That said, I tend to take a fairly expansive view of The Fair Use Doctrine.  I think the creator of the content usually derives benefits from the use of his creation which - again, usually - outstrip the costs of lost revenues and/or watch-dogging.

The reflex of jealously guarding your proprietorship generally has the effect of narrowing your audience, which is kinda not the fucking point, now is it?


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.


Anyway, the larger point is that ceding control over the internet to anybody other than the users is just a bad idea.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Naughty Bits

I just had to do one more.

Mr Deity

From the Mr Deity collection

Today's Civics Assignment

Moyers has rehabbed himself in pretty good shape in the last 45 years.  For me, he stands among the last of the straight news guys.


Moyers & Company 101: On Winner Take All Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Yeesh

Makes me wonder about the level of self-loathing Juan Williams must've reached to put himself thru this.

One point of interest: Gingrich is complaining that Obama has done nothing about unemployment, and the one tangible thing he mentions is road building.  It's almost as if he's embracing standard Keynesian principles.

(ed note: the road in question is I-73, which was first proposed way back in 1983, and has been a political football in SC politics ever since)

But most interesting is the enthusiastic reaction of the mob as Gingrich puts a whuppin' on the black guy - in their minds Williams is just a stand-in for "that uppity buck in the White House".

Gingrich poses a real danger to the GOP (along with the rest of us) because he threatens to unleash the monsters of the Great American Id.

(hat tip = Wonkette)



Sunday, January 15, 2012

Boy Culture

The pendulum swings.  We've spent a long time trying to get girls up to speed, and now I guess it turns out we need to try to treat everybody as if they were individuals.  Wow - what a concept.




Walk Off The Earth

Is this the opposite of multi-tasking?



(I can't find a working link at Amazon)

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Rachel, Rachel

I check in on Rachel Maddow once in a while.  When she wags her finger and gets preachy, I can do without her, but when she sticks to stringing the facts together and connecting the dots, there's no better reporter.