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The Anti-Christian Lawyers Union just successfully collaborated with the American Family Association to win the release of a street preacher charged with disorderly conduct.
I look forward to this news causing some wing nuts’ heads to explode.
Mad Hot Ballroom (warning: obnoxious flash site with audio) is a documentary about a children’s Latin dance competition. I’ve been meaning to see it since it came out.
This interview with the producer describes the insane difficulties they faced in getting permission to use the music.
Stay Free!: There’s a scene where a woman’s cell phone rings and she has the “Rocky” theme ring tone. I noticed that you even cleared that! I would have thought that could be an example of fair use.
Sewell: I thought so too. It’s only six seconds! But our lawyer said we needed to clear it. So I called Sprint, which owns the ring tone master rights, and they gave it to me for free because they saw it as product placement. But then I called EMI, which owns the publishing rights and they asked for $10,000. […]
Stay Free!: Were there any other inconvenient clearances you had to deal with?
Sewell: Well, we had to watch out for billboards and Frito-Lay trucks all the time. But I usually didn’t care, we would just shoot. The biggest danger with clearances is when they interfere with documenting real life. Something spontaneous like a cell phone ringing is different than a planned event. If filmmakers have to worry about these things, documentaries will cease to be documentaries! What happens when the girls go shopping and there’s music playing in the stores? We were lucky because in our movie the music wasn’t identifiable, but otherwise what are we supposed to do: walk up to the store manager and say, “Excuse me but can you turn off your radio?”
Another amazing guide to how bad it is is the Do Not Accept Wiki cataloging images that are trademarked, and thus photographs containing them can’t be published without permission.
The stitching on Levi’s pockets. Harley Davidsons. Peeps. The Empire State Building. It goes on and on.
Surveying America’s scientific literacy. (That’s a NY Times link that will go stale in a few days — it was resistant to the NY Times link generator.)
While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are “scientifically savvy and alert,” he said in an interview. Most of the rest “don’t have a clue.” At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people’s inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process. […]
American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.
Majority of Americans approve of teaching creationism.
In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released yesterday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. The poll found that 42 percent of respondents held strict creationist views, agreeing that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” In contrast, 48 percent said they believed that humans had evolved over time. But of those, 18 percent said that evolution was “guided by a supreme being,” and 26 percent said that evolution occurred through natural selection. In all, 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent favored replacing evolution with creationism.
(Latter link via Amygdala)
Through Tuesday, the New Orleans Craigslist Men Seeking Women ad section looks to have been pretty moribund, getting 2-4 postings a day, typically. Yesterday and today, it’s exploded with generous, altruistic, humanitarian men offering up their homes to hot, homeless refugees. (The numbers at the end of the headlines below are the posters’ ages, as self-reported.)
Come to Florida / Female wanted - 42
I am sorry to here of your loss and suffering. I am a single man an artist who is fun and energetic. I am looking for a single woman 27-35 attractive and fit. I have a small apartment I live close to the ocean there is work here also. The women in Floirda are shallow so I thought this may be a way to meet someone special. I am a honest decnt man and you should be with no kids or drugs. Send a picture to me and I will arrange transportation for you.
Can Help Out Single Younger Woman, - 40
my heart is with you i feel terrible-i love the city.I am 40 yr.good looking guy and i admit I have a soft spot for younger woman.So if you need something up here in new york city hit me back. .I’m praying and hoping for you so hang in tough,Hit me back if you can. pic for pic
I’m a single male, no kids, 5’ 8” 140 pounds, athletic. I have a big house in Las vegas. I’m looking for a pretty single white girl. If you’ve lost your home and you and your family need a place to stay, I can help. I can help you and your family. I have a truck and am willing to drive out there and pick you and your family and whatever possessions you can load up. I hope people stay safe.
(Via this MeFi entry, which shows that a bunch of this kind of ad has already been deleted)
Repent America, whose front page has separate links for “Christians Enter Here” and All Others Enter Here, leading to a page asking “Are you good enough to go to heaven?”, can tell you why God destroyed New Orleans.
Just days before “Southern Decadence”, an annual homosexual celebration attracting tens of thousands of people to the French Quarters section of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina destroys the city.
“Southern Decadence” has a history of filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars. Last year, a local pastor sent video footage of sex acts being performed in front of police to the mayor, city council, and the media. City officials simply ignored the footage and continued to welcome and praise the weeklong celebration as being an “exciting event”. However, Hurricane Katrina has put an end to the annual celebration of sin. […]
“Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. “From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence,’ New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge,” he continued.
Gee, first 9/11, and now this. Those gays have a lot to answer for.
From a Samuel L. Jackson interview:
Beaks: One of those films that you’re working on right now is… well, it’s called “Pacific Air 121”—
Jackson: Snakes on a Plane, man!
Beaks: Exactly.
Jackson: We’re totally changing that back. That’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.
Beaks: Snakes on a Plane! That’s everything!
Jackson: You either want to see that, or you don’t.
And from the blog of a Josh Friedman, a screenwriter who almost worked on it.
I ask Agent the name of the project, what it’s about, etc. He says: Snakes on a Plane. Holy shit, I’m thinking. It’s a title. It’s a concept. It’s a poster and a logline and whatever else you need it to be. It’s perfect. Perfect. It’s the Everlasting Gobstopper of movie titles.
I say to Agent: “Tell me nothing else. Get me the script and put me on the phone with those lucky bastards at New Line Cinema!” […]
ME: “Oh my God I just have to say first and foremost that SNAKES ON A PLANE is the single greatest movie title of all time. I’m even using it as a zen koan. You have to promise me if I sign on to rewrite this you will NEVER change the title to something sort of generic and stupid like FLIGHT ONE-TWENTY WHO GIVES A FUCK.”
AWKWARD SILENCE
ME: “You’re changing the title aren’t you?”
OLD FRIEND: Well, we were thinking, we need to make it a little scarier, a little more thriller-y, something not so camp…”
ME: But…it’s SNAKES ON A PLANE.
I’ve got to say: I would never see “Pacific Air 121.” But I’ve got to see “Snakes on a Plane”!
Read the rest of Friedman’s blog entry — funny stuff.
Like a lot of people with working hearts and minds, I’m variously shocked, baffled, disgusted, embarrassed, and very angry at my government’s continued failures in and around New Orleans. But I think it’s being covered more than adequately elsewhere, and I don’t have anything to add (though that’s subject to change.)
I’ve been keeping on top of the news first and foremost at Making Light, and, also, Boing Boing and Amygdala. Read them.
For the next week, I’ll make an effort to post fun (or at least non-disaster-related) things, to give my dozens of readers some other things to think about. Distractions can be important, too. (But please do donate if you can.)
If you tie a better shoelace, will people beat a path to your home in the woods?
Break the cycle of Civ addiction. Your recovery is only 12 steps away.
If you are like most Civilization addicts, your story began innocently enough way back in 1991 with the discovery of Sid Meier’s Civilization by Firaxis Games. The original “Civ,” as it’s called on the streets, and its two subsequent sequels, II and III, allowed you to create or conquer vast civilizations-from the dawn of man to the space age and beyond. The unique turn-based strategy game quickly became the game of choice for gamers around the world. For some, however, it became more than that…it became an addiction.
Now, with Civilization IV about to hit the shelves, it is important that you take control of your life and wrest the upper hand from your addiction once and for all. CivAnon (Civilization Anonymous) is a support community in the mold of traditional 12-step programs that can help you find your higher power in order to break the chains of your addiction-for good.
Civ IV is scheduled for November, in time for Xmas buying. Part of their hype is the above spoof addiction site.
But with compulsive computer game playing actually having destructive effects in this world, I consider it in bad taste.
What I find especially dangerous is that this Civ can be extensively modified through Python scripting, even the user interface… irrestible bait for my worst compulsive customizer tendencies. I’ve always been disappointed with the UI of previous Civs… now I could have a whole ‘nother level to obsess over — tweaking the interface.
I think I’d better not got it.
When Defective Yeti recommended the song Business Time, I downloaded it, but it took me a while to listen to it.
Next time he recommends a song, I’m not waiting. Business Time answers the question no one thought to ask: “What if Barry White were a pathetic suburban married loser?” Pocahontas and I can crack each other up by quoting any of several lines from it. Go listen.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Pocahontas has always had some of the geek nature. While unpacking when we first moved in, she came across her old molecular modeling kit from college. She immediately demonstrated to me the difference between transfats and regular fats, just as an excuse to play with it.
But science fiction and fantasy were wholly off her radar. I got her started on Neal Stephenson. Then A Scanner Darkly. The Lathe of Heaven. Doorways in the Sand. American Gods. Good Omens. Wizard of the Pigeons. Now, some months, she reads more of Asimov’s than I do.
And, yesterday, unprompted, she said, “Oh no! Neil Gaiman’s coming the same night Serenity opens!”
sniff. I’m so proud!
(Note: MirrorMask opens the same night, at least for lucky people in 17 select U.S. cities, of which Berkeley is one. That’ll be a good weekend to be a geek.)
Lovecraft in Euskara (Basque):
Balbutiusek artagabeki errefusatu egin zuen eskaera, hiritarren beldurrak funtsagabeak zirela argudiatuz, eta gainera, mendietako jendearen errituak ez zirela Erromaren kontua hiritar erromatarren beraien kontrako mehatxurik ez zekarten bitartean. Nik neuk, Balbutiusen lagun mina, neure ezadostasuna azaldu nuen, debekatutako arte beltzak sakonki ikasi nituela esetsiz eta, nire ustez, antzinako jendea hiria izengabeko izugarrikeriez madarikatzeko gauza zela, eta hiri hura, azken finean, gure aberkide batzuk bizi ziren erromatar asentamendua zela. Igorritako zinegotziaren beraren ama, Helvia, jatorri garbiko erromatarra zen eta M. Helvius Cinnaren alaba, lurralde hauetara Escipioren armadarekin heldu zena. Berarekin ados, gutun bat bidali nion prokontsulari esklabu batez, Antipatros izeneko greziar txiki eta bizkorraz, eta Escriboniusek azkenik nire erreguari jaramon egin zion, Balbutiusi bere bosgarren kohortea, Aseliusen agindupean, Pompaelusera bidaltzeko aginduz, azaroko kalenden bezperako ilunabarrean mendietara abiatzeko eta, gupidarik gabe, topa zitzakeen izengabeko orgiak zapaltzeko eta, azkenik, hartutako preso guztiak Tarracusera, propretorearen epaitegira, bidaltzeko.
(Via Languagehat)
The World Meteorological Association’s official hurricane nomenclature has 21 names per year prepared in advance — one for each letter of the alphabet from A through W, omitting Q and U.
If we ever run out in a given year, the plan is to move on to the names of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.
Let’s hope we never see Hurricane Omega.
Neurotypicality is not likely to be in an edition of the DSM any time soon.
Neurotypicality is a pervasive developmental condition, probably present since birth, in which the affected person sees the world in a very strange manner. It is a puzzle; a enigma that traps those so affected in a lifelong struggle for social status and recognition. Neurotypical individuals almost invariably show a triad of impairments, consisting of inability to think independently of the social group, marked impairment in the ability to think logically or critically, and inability to form special interests (other than in social activity). It is my hope that this article will help us understand the very different world of the neurotypical.
Neurotypical individuals show difficulty in forming an individual identity, or in thinking outside of the bounds of the accepted norms of their social groups. It appears that each group a neurotypical belongs to will have its own set of “official” opinions, and each neurotypical within that group is expected to adopt those beliefs. As strange as it sounds, they generally do so very readily, and are not hesitant at all to help enforce those beliefs and ensure group homogeneity of opinion. There appears to be an innate drive for the neurotypical to fit in with groups in that manner, and their own innate opinions and desires are modified automatically to fit the group ideal. This bizarre lack of independence explains the tendency for neurotypicals to engage in fads of various sorts, or for the existence of certain trends. Neurotypicals will change the way they talk or dress according to these trends, and other neurotypicals will admire and imitate such “trendy” behavior. As such, neurotypicals are easy prey for TV commercials or other means of advertising that seek to portray the purchase or use of various products as socially desirable or “cool.”
Even the Economist is willing to mention that U.S. social mobility is on the decline — the article features headlines like “More dynastic than dynamic” and “Back to the 1880s.”
The past couple of decades have seen a huge increase in inequality in America. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank, argues that between 1979 and 2000 the real income of households in the lowest fifth (the bottom 20% of earners) grew by 6.4%, while that of households in the top fifth grew by 70%. The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%—and that of the top 0.1% or 0.01% grew even faster. Back in 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%; by 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth. […]
The most remarkable feature of the continuing power of America’s elite—and its growing grip on the political system—is how little comment it arouses. Britain would be in high dudgeon if its party leaders all came from Eton and Harrow. Perhaps one reason why the rise of caste politics raises so little comment is that something similar is happening throughout American society.
Ah, the good ol’ 1880’s, when robber barons casually said things like I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. Truly, the Republican party can make America what it once was.
This flash game is wonderfully simple. Good for a few minutes’ distraction.
He treats you like crap, lies to you, abuses you, bullies you, exploits you, takes your money. As a friend I want to tell you that you deserve better. You deserve a person that treats you with respect, cares about your welfare, and your children’s welfare, but that’s not George and it never will be.
Of course, it would be heinous to politicize Katrina.
Federal troops aren’t the only ones looking for bodies on the Gulf Coast. On Sept. 9, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions called his old law professor Harold Apolinsky, co-author of Sessions’ legislation repealing the federal estate tax, which was encountering sudden resistance on the Hill. Sessions had an idea to revitalize their cause, which he left on Apolinsky’s voice mail: “[Arizona Sen.] Jon Kyl and I were talking about the estate tax. If we knew anybody that owned a business that lost life in the storm, that would be something we could push back with.”
So like I said, Neil Gaiman is coming to town, on the 30th. Cody’s, the hosting bookstore, has booked a church for the event. They way they’re handling the tickets is that you get a ticket free with each copy of any of three books you buy, starting today, the 20th: Anansi Boys, his new novel; the MirrorMask screenplay; the Alchemy of Mirrormask (the “making of” book.)
I’d been planning to get our tickets today, but I wasn’t sweating it. It’s not like comics fans or fantasy fans are widely reputed for their rigorous advance preparation (I don’t know about the goths.)
Anyway, Pocahontas and I did make it today. Cody’s had a huge table full of Gaiman and Mirrormask books, mostly Anansi Boys. And as we were picking up our books, a middle-aged woman came in, grabbed one, and went straight to the counter. As we were buying them, two young women came in and picked up a copy each.
It was like a movie scene contrived to depict something selling like hotcakes.
I’m glad I got mine today, and I will never again think I can rely on the lameness of Gaiman fans.
Yowzer. A single MegaMillions lottery ticket sold in New Jersey just won a quarter of a billion dollars. Okay, after half to taxes, and, if it’s taken as a lump sum cash payment rather than annual payments, that’s “only” sixty-two and a half million.
But that’s still a lot of scratch.
A star attraction of Boston’s Public Garden is a pair of swans, Romeo and Juliet. After the swans were found to be neglecting their eggs, even kicking them into the water, park officials investigated. The eggs were unfertilized; both Romeo and Juliet are female.
And our culture is so screwed up that, despite how well-documented animal homosexuality is, this has created controversy.
The news ignited something of a debate among swan spectators in the Public Garden yesterday, with some insisting the city now should buy a true Romeo. […]
”I think this proves that there’s something in the environment in Massachusetts,” Brian Camenker, director of the Article 8 Alliance, a Waltham-based organization fighting same-sex marriage, joked in a telephone interview. ”Maybe it’s the water that’s causing all this lunacy.” […]
‘They should have a Romeo,” lamented Laura Elsheimer, a Hudson resident and owner of Sunshine Taxi Cab.
I enjoyed this bit of an otherwise mostly uninteresting Bill Watterson interview.
Q: What led you to resist merchandising Calvin and Hobbes?
A: For starters, I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo.
Well, I suppose this was inevitable: Flickrlicious: Babes of Flickr.
It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts who have studied the US navy’s cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying ‘toxic dart’ guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet’s smartest.
In celebration of the working person’s holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has announced the Bush Administration’s plan to end the 60-year-old law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime. […] President Bush announced in his convention acceptance speech this week that he was changing overtime rules to give workers “comp time” off instead of pay. He forgot to mention that a couple of days before, on August 23, his Labor Department had already put in half the plan — eliminating overtime pay for millions — while failing to put into the regs one word about comp time. In the pre-September 11 days, we used to call that, “lying.”
(via Funferal)
This story is from the comments of a fine post on Making Light, comment and post both from Jim MacDonald.
FEMA had contracted with Landstar Express America, a Florida company owned by Bush supporter Jeff Crowe, for disaster transportation in a contract worth $100 million dollars.
Not two days before Katrina, when Brownie says he should have figured out that Louisiana was dysfunctional, but one day before Katrina hit New Orleans — Sunday — that company that had contracted for one hundred million bucks a year to provide disaster transportation figured out that maybe, perhaps, someone might need transportation, because it looked like a disaster might be shaping up. So — they did a web search and found Carey Transportation, a limo company whose web site said they had a meetings and events division that could move large groups of people.
Carey Transportation did their best. When Landstar called back on Tuesday, eighteen hours after Katrina hit, after the levees had already broken, to order 300 buses (lessee — 80,000 people — 300 buses sounds about right, doesn’t it?) they got out their phone book and started calling around. They found Transportation Management Services of Vienna, VA, which specializes in providing transportation for conventions, and hired the buses from them.
And that, my friends, is where the buses that started showing up in New Orleans on Thursday, five days after people went to the shelters, came from.
How was Landstar rewarded for taking a hundred million bucks for disaster preparedness then not doing anything to prepare for a disaster? By having its contract increased to four hundred million bucks. For a hundred million they did a Google search the day before the hurricane hit. For four hundred million maybe they’ll call Priceline.
A couple of weeks ago, I said this weekend would be a good time to be a geek, what with a Neil Gaiman reading in Berkeley, plus the opening of Serenity and MirrorMask (not to mention some geek friends of mine throwing a party.) In this Neil Gaiman/Joss Whedon interview, Gaiman nominates Friday as National Geek Day.
The Wall Street Journal channels the Onion, chanting: No blood for oil! Keep cars inefficient!
The leading current proposal, promoted by environmental groups and Congressional Democrats, would raise the standard to 40 mpg by 2010 from 27.5 mpg today. This might save gas, but we know for sure it will cost lives. That’s because a primary way auto companies meet CAFE standards is to reduce the weight of their cars. Research has consistently confirmed that the lighter the vehicle the more dangerous it is in a crash because there is less survival space and less physical structure to absorb impact. […] Raising the standards to 40 mpg could raise to 5,000 the number of annual CAFE-related fatalities, according to a study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Yeah, look at how much more survival space there is in an SUV!
Meanwhile, in response to Massachusetts’ decision to standardize on the OpenDocument format, Fox News has this opinion piece by one James Prendergast.
“I am concerned that by requiring OpenDocument that Mr. Quinn [state CIO] may be aligning Massachusetts with what becomes a second-rate file format as Microsoft keeps expanding into XML and metadata and OpenDocument may have trouble keeping up.” […]
Jim Prendergast is executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, a coalition of technology professionals, companies and organizations that supports limited government regulation of technology. An earlier version of this column failed to disclose that Microsoft Corporation is a founding member of ATL.
Quel coincidence.
Updated 10/7: Citizens Against Government Waste, which receives funding from MSFT, and regularly goes to bat against open source and for MSFT, has issued a press release denouncing Massachusetts’ decision. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
In an Ask Metafilter question on sleep sex, one MeFite reveals:
Sleephumping is where my beautiful baby girl came from. And someday, she will use Google to find this comment. Poor little thing.