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random quotes ... to amuse, inspire, enrage:
What happened here [in Nazi Germany] was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
The NYT ran an article today (5/26) about rap/hiphop music in Bolivia. Young artists are using hiphop & rap to get their message of social justice, democracy, and peace. One young artist talks about copyright infringement: The one CD the rappers recorded, called “Wayna Rap,” sells robustly on the streets of El Alto, pirated by [...]
The New Yorker has an article evaluating the <cough cough> science of intelligent design. Most amusing (and insightful) quote (from discussion of Behe’s “irreducible complexity” argument): It’s true that when you confront biologists with a particular complex structure like the flagellum they sometimes have a hard time saying which part appeared before which other parts. [...]
Not content with their shared top-ten ranking in teen births, Louisiana State Rep. A. G. Crowe (R-Slidell) wants Louisiana to join with Oklahoma and Alabama in segregating (or banning) gay books. Good for you, Rep. Crowe. You tackle those problems that Louisiana is facing (high cancer mortality rates, high teen pregnancy rate, low education rates, [...]
So far today I am thrice annoyed: Multiple Double Standards: NY Sex Offenders Get Viagra [5/23] Jesus. Get over Viagra already. What is with the guys running the guvmint? “According to [NY State Comptroller Alan] Hevesi, the problem is an unintended consequence of a 1998 directive from federal officials telling states that Medicaid prescription programs [...]
A couple of blogs [Matthew Yglesias, Volokh Conspiracy 1 and 2] have been running long comment-thread arguments about US women changing their names on marriage. Most comments fall into one of a few categories: Rationalizing / defensive about the decision w/in their marriage for the woman to change her last name to the man’s: “It [...]
The Poor Man explains checks & balances & the US government in commenting on the Newsweek thing: Our government was set up two centuries ago by a group of men, some quite clever, who expected that it would be administered by the corrupt, the cowardly, and the stupid – in other words, by human beings. [...]
Kaja Foglio & Phil Foglio have taken their Girl Genius comic online. Here’s Phil writing about why: So- Here we are, several weeks into The Great Experiment. So far no one has been able to find another example of an established comic jumping directly to full-time free online mode. There are any number of examples [...]
Richard Nathan has written shakespeare parodies, and actually had them produced. I particularly like the title of “Scots on the Rocks” (MacBeth). Performance could be amusing — I did chuckle over Lady MacBeth’s “unsex me”: . . . S P O I L E R . . . (and when did it become the thing [...]
The world’s largest democracy has passed a revised FOIA bill [Times of India 5/22]. The new FOI requires even “notified intelligence and security agencies” to “provide information on questions of corruption and human rights violations”. The paper notes that “This is important for enforcing accountability on such agencies especially where misuse of laws like the [...]
The plaintiff and the defendant were in a long-term committed relationship. Early in the morning of September 24, 1994, they were engaged in consensual sexual intercourse. The plaintiff was lying on his back while the defendant was on top of him. The defendant’s body was secured in this position by the interlocking of her legs [...]
Re-assuring words from our Glorious Leader’s curiously independent-minded military leaders: “We haven’t reached the point of strafing and bombing from space,” Pete Teets, who stepped down last month as the acting secretary of the Air Force, told a space warfare symposium last year. “Nonetheless, we are thinking about those possibilities.” … The Air Force believes [...]
others speak so i don’t have to: Liberals vs. Radicals, copyright version – Seth Finkelstein weighs in on Derek Slater’s plea for copyright critics to unify. on ratzinger’s past & present: jeanne of bodyandsoul explains what’s so troubling about Ratzinger and other things i’ve read recently: Nyarlathotep’s Miscellany – discussing what choice means for minors [...]
The Boston Phoenix ran this article (“Singled out: Mercury Rev’s big Internet gamble” by Mac Randall) [5/19]. Mercury Rev is experimenting with “building fan anticipation” by releasing the album in EP-size dribs and drabs, via iTunes, and then pulling the EPs: The CD won’t reach stores till May 17. But on January 25, an EP [...]
ping made [5/15] a fun observation about microsoft’s “thought thieves” competition. Remember? MS’ competition for short films involving about ‘intellectual property theft’? They want you to assign all your moral rights etc. Ping has the language. btw — i note that moral rights vary from country to country but in at least some places they [...]
Cool archive of NYC hip-hop posters from late 70s/early 80s. Reprinted without any permission from the poster designer(s), so far as I can tell. Why, that’s blatant COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT !!! Why, s/he’s a — a — a Pirate, that’s what. A Pirate and a Thief. Posting this archive, without seeking the copyright owner’s permission and [...]
Federal prosecutors responded yesterday (5/17) to a motion to dismiss federal wire fraud charges against artist Steven Kurtz (Critical Art Ensemble). This bizarre & ridiculous prosecution continues against all common sense, which I can only guess is par for the course for the Ashcroft/Gonzalez DOJ. derived from: ap 5/17 and caedefensefund.org press release 5/17 2008/4/25 [...]
on may 17th, it will have been a whole year since Mass. started providing same-sex marriage licenses, and i’m still waiting for the quick and appropriate heavenly response. maybe the very cold weather here in mass., which seems unseasonable to me, is the heavenly response? my same-sex semi-lawfully wed spouse & i will keep a [...]
The Propaganda Remix Project Art Nouveau Parodies Longmire does Romance Novels – reimagined romance novel covers Longmire does Planet of the Apes I’m sure the universe of Star Wars parodies will continue to expand with Episode III, but Ann Bartow (one of my favorite legal thinkers) over at Siva Vaidhyanathan’s group blog sivacracy.net posted a [...]
cory doctorow writes about SFWA’s ongoing campaign against copyright infringement (Why writers should stop worrying about “ebook piracy”– boingboing 5/14) cory also cited from & linked to john scalzi writing about the same thing (The Stupidity of Worrying About Piracy 5/13). personally, i much appreciated john’s description of how he feels about readers who can’t [...]
in the recent governmental panic attack about the cessna, White House Spokesperson Scott McClellan says that there was no need to notify Bush because “the protocols were followed”. so … we get a glimpse into the fact that we don’t actually have a Glorious Leader. and it turns out that we don’t actually need a [...]