Scott enlightens me tonight with the knowledge that Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin all died at the ripe age of 27.

Check out the 27 Club.

darn

I accidentally deleted Yo La Tengo's and then nothing turned itself
inside-out.

Does anybody have a copy?

Finally, a raison d'être for my 20" widescreen monitor.

Download it and watch it full screen.

The scene with the gendarmes is really, really rich.

C'était un Rendezvous: "

C'était un Rendezvous:

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

It has just been remastered and released on DVD.

Quicktime here. It's absolutely terrifying, despite looking a lot like a video game. 'Red light! Red light! Red light! GARBAGE TRUCK!!!' The only thing it's missing is a woman pushing a baby carriage, and a couple of guys carrying a plate-glass window.
"

(Via jwz.)

Senator Joseph Lieberman is a tool.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts.

...


In addition to Mr. Specter, Republicans voting against the bill were Senators John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. The five Democrats voting for the bill were Senators Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

FW: [IP] Greetings from Idiot America

It has been 11 years since I read any hofstadter.

Perhaps too long.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Thursday, Nov 10, 2005 9:21 am
Subject: [IP] Greetings from Idiot America

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kurt Albershardt <kurt@nv.net>
Date: November 10, 2005 12:40:36 AM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Greetings from Idiot America

Greetings from Idiot America

by Charles Pierce
Nov 01 '05
Esquire Magazine, by way of <http://templeofpolemic.proboards42.com/index.cgi?board=theo&action=print&thread=1130126466>

..

The rise of Idiot America is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of intellectual elites that Richard Hofstadter deftly teased out of the national DNA forty years ago. Both of those things are part of it. However, the rise of Idiot America today represents�for profit mainly, but also, and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power�the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we should trust the least are the people who best know what they're talking about. In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a preacher, or a scientist, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.

In the place of expertise, we have elevated the Gut, and the Gut is a moron, as anyone who has ever tossed a golf club, punched a wall, or kicked an errant lawn mower knows. We occasionally dress up the Gut by calling it "common sense." The president's former advisor on medical ethics regularly refers to the "yuck factor." The Gut is common. It is democratic. It is the roiling repository of dark and ancient fears. Worst of all, the Gut is faith-based.

It's a dishonest phrase for a dishonest time, "faith-based," a cheap huckster's phony term of art. It sounds like an additive, an artificial flavoring to make crude biases taste of bread and wine. It's a word for people without the courage to say they are religious, and it is beloved not only by politicians too cowardly to debate something as substantial as faith but also by Idiot America, which is too lazy to do it.

After all, faith is about the heart and soul and about transcendence. Anything calling itself faith-based is admitting that it is secular and profane. In the way that it relies on the Gut to determine its science, its politics, and even the way it sends its people to war, Idiot America is not a country of faith; it's a faith-based country, fashioning itself in the world, which is not the place where faith is best fashioned.

..

How does it work? This is how it works. On August 21, a newspaper account of the "intelligent design" movement contained this remarkable sentence: "They have mounted a politically savvy challenge to evolution as the bedrock of modern biology, propelling a fringe academic movement onto the front pages and putting Darwin's defenders firmly on the defensive."

A "politically savvy challenge to evolution" is as self-evidently ridiculous as an agriculturally savvy challenge to euclidean geometry would be. It makes as much sense as conducting a Gallup poll on gravity or running someone for president on the Alchemy Party ticket. It doesn't matter what percentage of people believe they ought to be able to flap their arms and fly, none of them can. It doesn't matter how many votes your candidate got, he's not going to turn lead into gold. The sentence is so arrantly foolish that the only real news in it is where it appeared.

On the front page.

Of The New York Times.

..

--

-------------------------------------
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

I want to go see Iron & Wine on December 6th.

Anybody want to join?

I'm a bit confused. Does this acknowledged use of White Phosphorous rounds in Falluja contravene any Chemical Weapon Use Convention that we've signed?

Or not?

Thanks to Seth, I'm in Sufjan Stevens immersion.

I haven't been this excited since I first heard the White Stripes.

winter, or dandruff from up on high

I'm seeing some white flakes floating down.

I think it is snow.

This is why I like Lessig.

this is very funny: "

Apparently, the 'Progress' and Freedom Foundation has joined the publishers in the GooglePrint case. James Delong filled the inbox of countless many to inform them about 'Google Print and the Aerospace Analogy: Lessig's Counterfactual History.' The whole missive was a response to a blog post I had written when Google was first sued.

As DeLong writes (I can't find the post online, but I'll happily add the link if someone sends it):

In a recent blog about Google Print, Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig repeats a story that is also at the center of his book Free Culture. He cites the 1946 airplane noise case of U.S. v. Causby as clearing the way for the air age by overthrowing the old legal doctrine that a landowner's property extends to the heavens, thus making the airspace into a commons. He then draws an analogy to Google Print, arguing that the old copyright regime must be similarly overthrown in the name of the new commons of the Internet Age. Unfortunately, his depiction misstates the issues in Causby, ignores the fact that the landowner actually won, and fails to mention that the case stands for close to the opposite of the principles for which he cites it.

Who could have thought such drama could be generated by a blog post? Or that such mistaken drama could be generated by a blog post?

My use of the story -- in both contexts -- is perfectly apt, and correct. Here's the passage I quoted from the case in the book, and referred to in the blog post:

It is ancient doctrine that at common law ownership of the land extended to the periphery of the universe - Cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum. But that doctrine has no place in the modern world. The air is a public highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private ownership that to which only the public has a just claim. 328 U.S. at 261.

The use I've made of this paragraph is simply to remark an old property rule (that property extended to the 'periphery of the universe') that modern 'common sense' changed (by making the 'air a public highway'). What might have made sense with one technology (a world without airplanes) no longer makes sense with another technology (airplanes) and so society thus faces a choice: respect the ancient doctrines despite the consequence for progress (by which I mean the ordinary meaning of 'progress' and not the very different meaning intended in the title, 'Progress & Freedom Foundation'), or let 'common sense' revolt against that regressive idea. The case recognized, and respected, the revolt. The law of property does not extend to the 'periphery of the universe.'

DeLong says this is wrong. Again, as he describes, I had described the case as 'overthrowing the old legal doctrine that a landowner's property extends to the heavens, thus making the airspace into a commons.' This description, DeLong asserts, 'misstates' the case. For in fact, the Causby's won. And that instead, as DeLong explains the case,

Its basic teaching is that not even a government, let alone a private party, is permitted to simply decree that something is now a commons, without regard to the impact on existing rights.

This is now my favorite example of the kind of binary thinking that pollutes Washington. My claim had been that the 'ancient doctrine' was declared void -- that the right of property did not extend to the 'periphery of the universe.' DeLong is right that the Causby's prevailed in the Supreme Court on a takings claim. But their victory was not because, as DeLong states, 'not even a government, let alone a private party, is permitted to simply decree that something is now a commons.' Their victory was because the invasion they alleged was so extreme. But the Court is absolutely clear that the old rule -- that property extends to the 'periphery of the universe' is no longer the law. As Douglas writes,

The airspace, apart from the immediate reaches above the land, is part of the public domain.

'[P]art of the public domain.' How did it become part of the public domain? By a 'simpl[e] decree that something is now a commons.' Does that mean everything is in the public domain? Of course not: as the case recognizes, the 'immediate reaches above the land' may still be claimed. But beyond the 'immediate reaches above the land,' property that before was claimed by landowners was now decreed to be 'in the public domain.'

Did anyone receive compensation for that taking? No. Has DeLong provided anything to contradict that claim? No. Instead DeLong's analysis follows precisely the binary thought of most in Washington: If someone is claiming that the extreme claims of property are wrong, then someone must be claiming that there is no claim of property.

But of course, no one I know makes such an extreme claim. I think Google has a 'fair use' right to build an index to books. (See a careful account of this by Bill Patry.) I don't think Google has the right to scan copyrighted books from a library and serve full copies of those books to anyone in the world. That is, I distinguish between some rights, and all rights.

The Causby case matches that distinction precisely:

(1) The law gives copyright owners an exclusive right to 'copy.' That's the equivalent of the law giving land owners rights to the 'periphery of the universe.'

(2) A new technology (digital networks; airplanes) now renders absurd respecting that exclusive right as it was before that technology.

(3) The proper response is for commons sense to 'revolt' against the extreme claim (that the publishers get to control every copy, even one to simply produce an index; that the rights to land extend to the 'periphery of the universe')

(4) Revolting against the extreme claim does not entail abolishing all rights absolutely. The Causby's can complain about planes flying within the 'immediate reaches' of the ground. The authors and publishers should be able to complain about, e.g., someone who scanned and made full copies of a copyrighted book available online.

But there is one great and true part to DeLong's email. As he writes,

Causby was entitled only to the decline in his property value, not to a share of the gains from the air age.

Truly, if there is a principle here, that should be it. The baseline is the value of the property BEFORE the new technology. Does the new technology reduce THAT value. Put differently, would authors and publishers be worse off with Google Print than they were before Google Print?

To ask that question is to answer it -- of course the authors and publishers are better off with Google Print.

Are they as well off as they could be, if the law gives them the power to extort from the innovator some payment for his innovation?

To ask that question is to understand why this case has been filed: Like Valenti with the Betamax, the publishers and Authors Guild simply want to tax the value created by Google Print. They are not complaining about any 'decline in [their] property value' caused by Google Print. They are instead racing to claim the value that ancient law is said to give to them, despite the harm that claim produces for 'progress.'

"

(Via Lessig Blog.)

Innuendo. Get it?

The best of England's new "Let's Keep Crime Down" campaign: "

Engadget editors, for instance.

So the Home Office crime prevention department in the UK just launched this three year ‘Let’s Keep Crime Down’
campaign with a specific bend on consumer electronics and portables to, um, help reduce crime. So without further ado,
may we present our picks for the best of ‘Let’s Keep Crime Down’...





[Thanks, Adrian]

... including the corner of a shop in order to snatch the sweet, sweet
olives within.

Wonder which phone they used for this ad?

How’d they get a picture of Engadget HQ?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
© 2005 Weblogs, Inc.

"

(Via engadget.com.)

The President acting out scenes from Secretary. Also, a Panda.

Bush's Butterstick: "

There's been a lot talk lately about whether or not Bush should fire Karl Rove in an effort to stop his precipitous slide down into approval rating hell. (Also it would be what he promised to do.) Say he does -- what then? How do you get people to fall back in love with a White House that's grown distant, cold and ugly?

We think we know:

"

(Via Wonkette.)

Cradle to Grave: "

Jill Fehrenbacher and Sarah Rich write about the ongoing evolution of sustainable design at Inhabitat.

When it comes time to bury a loved one, our otherwise expansive worldview is often funneled down to the immediate and necessary. Thinking of the environmental impact of final arrangements is rarely a priority. But there are people out there, from product designers to funeral home owners, who are trying to make it a little easier to make an eco-conscious choice when the time comes.

It is generally thought that cremation is more environmentally responsible than traditional burial, since the latter uses all kinds of toxic substances to embalm the body, as well as in the manufacturing of the casket, which is often lined with heavy metals and finished with harsh resins. Additionally, gravesites are deep, concrete-lined vaults, the creation of which is not a low-impact endeavor. While vast cemetaries full of concrete and stone memorials do have a certain haunting beauty, there are alternative guises for a cemetary that do greater service to the land, and can be a more pleasant place for visitors to come memorialize the dead. The green burial movement began in the UK, where there are now numerous eco-cemeteries full of trees rather than headstones. In the US, land restoration projects such as Fernwood use natural burial as a means of restoring native species to large areas of land.

Some more high-tech alternatives have been springing up, as well, one of the most intriguing being Biopresence, another UK venture which creates 'living memorials' by literally implanting human DNA into a tree, thus allowing the 'essence' of that person to live on.

This is really an untapped area of opportunity for design and innovation. It will never disappear and it impacts every one of us. The challenge, more than anything, is in the fact that death is a taboo subject for many of us, or at the very least something to which we avoid devoting much thought. But these slowly emerging evolutions in the arena of death rites and burial are proving that there is a great deal of room for improvement, both for the individual and the earth.

FERNWOOD ECO-CEMETERY

Fernwood Cemetery has existed for over a century, though their natural burial offerings are fairly new. The Mill Valley, CA, establishment is a funeral home, crematory and cemetery with an underlying mission of completing a longterm land restoration project through eco-friendly burials. Each burial that takes place there provides an opportunity to remove invasive species and renew the landscape through the use of native plants, trees and flowers.

In contrast to a traditional burial, which uses toxic embalming fluids, caskets lined with heavy metals and harmful finishes, and invasive excavation of the land, a natural burial uses a biodegradable casket without embalming fluids or a concrete vault. Native trees and plants are grown above the burial site, and Fernwood uses GPS to digitally keep track of gravesites. They also offer a digital 'Lifestories' biography as a means of preserving memories of the deceased.

SOUL ASH SOLACE

Back in July, we wrote about the Bios Urn, a container for cremation ashes which biodegrades over time, distributing seedlings into the earth and sprouting trees in memory of the deceased. Belgian design company, Maximal Design has also been inspired by the universal need for designs surrounding death rites. Their Soul Ash Solace is a cremation coffin and urn in one.

The coffin itself is made from lightweight, eco-friendly cardboard, wood and paper maché, all of which burn easily without emitting harmful vapors into the air. The stainless steel urn, which is shaped like an hour-glass to symbolize that 'time heals all wounds,' sits on top of the coffin. The urn withstands the heat of the burning process and gains a uniquely colored patina from the flames.

The idea with Soul Ash Solace is not only to bring beautiful design to a process we all go through, but also to create an inexpensive, environmentally-friendly solution to a ritual that can often be costly and polluting. The design was a nominee in this year's Index: in Copenhagen, a well-deserved recognition of forward-thinking design for a largely unacknowledged, though truly universal life event.

BIOS URN

Some things in our society are completely over-designed (how many handbags does one person need?) Other things are so solemn that design is rarely, if ever, considered. Rituals surrounding death fall into the latter category.

Although it happens to everyone at some point, there is not a wide variety of choices out there when it comes down to dealing with human remains. That's why the Bios Urn is such a thoughtful idea.

Designed by the Azuamoline duo, (Martin Ruiz de Azua and Gerard Moliné) the Bios Urn is a container for cremated ashes, made from compacted coconut shells, organic fertilizer and tree seedlings. As the container biodegrades, a seed will sprout, recycling you or your loved one back into the circle of life.

According to designer Azua:

Death always comes and somehow it has to be designed. The actual ritual is old-fashioned and also increases space problems in large cities.

In theory, the Bios Urn would allow graveyards to be turned back into forest over time.

Unfortunately, this design is still just a concept and not out on the market yet, as far as I can tell. Hopefully crematoriums and funeral parlors will make this option available in the near future.

CAPSULA MUNDI

The most earthly looking eco-burial container that we've found is the Capsula Mundi, created by a pair of Italian designers who wanted to remove the taboo from the burial process and give it a new conception.

The Capsula Mundi is an egg-shaped container made of bioplastic. The body of the deceased rests in a fetal position within this capsule, which gets planted in the earth like a bulb. A shallow circular depression is dug above the capsule to symbolize the presence of the body, in the center of which a tree is planted. Over time, the groups of burial sites become a sacred memorial grove.

The Capsula Mundi has made appearances as a design piece in exhibitions around Europe, including one with Droog Design last year. As a show piece, the design is a quintessential representation of a sprouting seed, perfectly encapsulating the designers' goal of regarding death as an opportunity to nourish the earth for the future.

BIOPRESENCE

Genetic modification is a controversial subject. We've got corporations promising to reduce world hunger by introducing badly needed nutrients into staple food crops. The same companies sue farmers over ownership of corn whose seedlings were dropped by birds. Such omniscience is both awe-striking and highly suspect given the short past and unpredictable future of biotechnology.

In an artistic response to the advancement of biotech, Biopresence has become its own godlike entity. Biopresence is an art venture currently based in the UK, which, in short, aims to preserve human genetic material by inserting it into living trees. The trees thus become 'living memorials' or 'transgenic tombstones' for the humans whose DNA they contain. This may top cryogenics for unusual final resting options.

Founders Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel established the venture 'with the purpose of exploring, participating and ultimately defining the most relevant playing field of the 21st century: the impact of biotechnologies on society and the human perception of these coming changes.'

The creators of Biopresence emphasize that their procedure does not result in a genetically-modified organism (GMO). Their method, which comes from collaborating artist/scientist Joe Davis's DNA Manifold Algorithm, allows human genetic information to be stored without affecting the genes of the tree. The 'physical essence of the human body' is produced in the tissue of the tree. As it decays, it releases its decomposition products in order to nurture new plants. Biopresence suggests that the method offers a desireable alternative in countries that have anti-burial laws.

Suffice it to say, Biopresence offers a fascinating new twist on biotechnical experimentation. It's a complex collision of genetics, art and ecology, with a touch of social commentary. And given that the future of genetic modification is as mysterious as life after death, it might be a perfect pairing.

(Posted by Jill Fehrenbacher and Sarah Rich in Sustainability Sundays at 10:35 AM)"

(Via WorldChanging: Another World Is Here.)

FW: [IP] more on Anonymous sperm donor traced using DNA, Internet

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Friday, Nov 4, 2005 8:37 pm
Subject: [IP] more on Anonymous sperm donor traced using DNA, Internet

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Alberti <alberti@sanction.net>
Date: November 4, 2005 7:22:31 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: RE: [IP] Anonymous sperm donor traced using DNA, Internet
Reply-To: alberti@sanction.net

What a fantastic story, and what a resourceful young man.

As a reunited adoptee and one of the founders of Bastard Nation
(http://www.bastards.org ) I have to say that I am encouraged by this lad's
ability to unearth his heritage. But I am disturbed that a child undertook
all the cost and risk involved in meeting this stranger, and that the donor
agency stresses the confidentiality of the adult donor over the emotional
and physical well-being of the searching child.

The forgotten member of the anonymous donor contract is the offspring. These persons did not agree to the contract of anonymity. The fact of their
conception does not obligate them to adhere to a contract to which they did
not agree. Likewise, adoptees all over the world are held to adoption contracts and promises to which they were not a party.

Adopted persons and donor offspring are more vulnerable than other citizens
to genetically-inherited vulnerabilities to disease. They do not have contact with blood relatives, increasing the difficulty of locating organ or
marrow donations. And these liabilities are handed down to their own offspring, who certainly have no responsibility for the conditions under which their parents were conceived.

Adoption and sperm donorship are excellent and necessary institutions. But
for too long agencies have made promises that they have no right making in
order to facilitate their business. And they maintain policies of secrecy
and privileged information without appropriate oversight: policies that deny
the rights of the adult citizens who emerge from their practices.

It is long past time that these organizations revisit the core beliefs that
underly their placement policies: that children are a commodity, that secrecy is beneficial to the donor or adoption process, and that they have
any right at all to keep from adult citizens the personal and medical information that can profoundly affect the lives of those citizens and their
own chilren.

And as this story indicates, if these agencies cannot grow and change they
will be bypassed. Mightn't it have been better in this case for the 15 year
old to be encouraged to wait until he was an adult, with the understanding
that at that time he would have the right to contact his biological father?
Wouldn't it have been better if, refusing to accept that delay, he and his
parents could have received counselling in concert with the meeting with his
biological father? Instead, a child took matters into his own hands and faced all the risks without any professional guidance.

Secrets and lies are not an appropriate foundation for such well- intentioned
businesses as donor banks and adoption agencies. It's long since past time
that these ill-considered secrecy policies be discarded, and open practices
be put into place to protect all parties and guarantee the full rights of
everyone involved - including the adults who trace their origins to these
organizations.

Bob Alberti, "Founding Foundling," Bastard Nation, http:// www.bastards.org
Phone: (612) 486-5000 ext 211 PO Box 583453
http://www.sanction.net Mpls, MN 55458-3453

"They SAY that your network is secure, but how can you be certain?"

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 5:47 PM
To: ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: [IP] Anonymous sperm donor traced using DNA, Internet

Date: November 3, 2005 2:35:14 PM EST
To: Multiple recipients of list talk <talk@privacy.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: PRIVACY:: Anonymous sperm donor traced using DNA, Internet
Reply-To: talk@privacy.cs.cmu.edu

Here's a clever 15 year old. First he uses DNA to find two men with very similar genes to himself and the same last name. His mother knew the date and place of birth of the unidentified donor. Only one
person with that name was born at that time in that place. It seems
to be time to figure out the risk of re-identifiability using {DNA,
DoB, place of birth} along with genealogical databases.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825244.200

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If this doesn't scream MUG ME, I don't know what does...

But Damn it IS hot.

Cool Cans With Nano Dock: "


MacAlly's mTune is a sweet looking set of cans with a dock for the iPod nano. Only $50 -- though no ship date has been set.

They're cordless, naturally, and don't even require any batteries. There's a standard jack for use with a computer or other music player."

(Via Cult of Mac.)

I don't know what this is, but Kt sent it to me.

I'll play it when I get home.

Somebody let me know how it is...

Paris Burning.

POLITICS: Paris: The Beirut of Europe: "They say Beirut is the Paris of the Middle East. Does that mean Paris is the Beirut of Europe? Or is that an insult to Beirut?



Paris has been on fire for 11 days. The violence is out of control and it has spread to 300 towns. Some are calling this the French Intifada.

PARIS, Nov. 7 -- France's national police chief warned Monday that a 'shock wave is spreading across the country' as rioting intensified in cities throughout France during an 11th night of violence. Officials from neighboring countries expressed concern that the unrest could leap across international borders.



Gangs of young men burned 1,408 cars and trucks in dozens of cities across France, national police chief Michel Gaudin said at a news conference Monday.



[…]



In one of the most extreme episodes of violence Saturday night, youths in Evreux, a city in northwestern France, assaulted police and set fire to a strip mall, two schools, a post office and 53 cars.



'Rioters attacked us with baseball bats,' Philippe Jofres, a deputy fire chief, told France-2 television. 'We were attacked with pickaxes. It was war.'



In Corbeil-Essonnes, a suburb south of Paris, a car rammed into a McDonald's restaurant, setting it ablaze and burning it to the ground. And Justice Ministry officials said they discovered a crude bomb-making workshop in a dilapidated building in Evry, south of Paris, that contained 100 empty bottles and gallons of fuel, according to the Associated Press.



Throughout the Paris suburbs, arsonists hit gymnasiums, schools and other symbols of the government.

Meanwhile, Beirut is peaceful and calm. And Beirut has and has had a lot more political problems than Paris.



The Lebanese people threw off the yoke of Syrian occupation, oppression, and de facto annexation while committing no violence. The supposedly ‘Western’ model of civil disobedience and protest worked beautifully even in the Middle East against a vicious military dictatorship.



The disgruntled of Paris, on the other hand, are inviting a brutal crackdown from a state infinitely less oppressive that the Syrian Baath regime. While some parts of the Middle East import liberal ‘Western’ political ideas into their culture, some parts of Europe import pathologies from the illiberal places in the Middle East and North Africa. Ah, the ironies of globalization.



It is slightly bizarre watching Europe explode from the tranquility of Beirut. But I'm getting used to it.

(Written by: Michael_J_Totten)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

Laura Tony & I went to go see Safety Last! this afternoon at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Free Showing of Brilliant Silent Slapstick with live piano accompaniment. I suppose it takes very little to get me to go out to a movie...

For those of you that missed Guy Fawkes day...

remember remember

"All right!" says England. "Wha...: "

remember remember



'All right!' says England. 'What're you two doin there with that gunpowder!'
'Why sir I am offended by your implication,' says me. 'We were just collectin gunpowder for charity.'
'Yes very true,' says Giblets. 'Millions of children go without gunpowder to eat every day.'
'Well that sounds reasonable,' says England. 'But what's with stickin it under Parliament!'
'Well Parliament has so much gunpowder to give,' says me.
'Yes, especially with all the gunpowder we stuck under it,' says Giblets.
'Everything seems to check out then,' says England. 'I'll just need your names and occupations for my report.'
'My name is Plausible Alias an this is my good friend Bomby McTreason,' says me.
'And we are violent regicidal conspirators,' says Giblets. 'No wait! I mean cookie merchants.'
'Everything checks out then,' says England. 'Carry on folks!'
'Oh no!' says Parliament.


'And that's how a bill becomes a law,' says me.
'Giblets is confused,' says Giblets.

"

(Via Fafblog.)