But not too clean

Daily Mail | Regular showers may be health risk
Taking regular showers could pose a health risk and even result in permanent brain damage, it has been claimed.

Scientists believe that breathing in small amounts of manganese dissolved in the water may harm the nervous system.

The damage may occur even at levels of the naturally occurring metal normally considered safe, say the US researchers.

Manganese?

Speechless

Slate has a short article on what happens to cartoon characters when the actor who provides its voice dies. The recent passing of what some wags have called the "Pooh trifecta" -- John (Piglet) Fiedler, Paul (Tigger) Winchell, and Howard (Gopher) Morris -- made it a timely subject, if a bit morbid.

Its morbidity quotient is increased by the anecdote about Disney Studios being deluged by resumes whenever one of its voice actors passes away. Actors have to seize opportunities as they arise if they want to keep working, and it was probably their agents (who everyone knows are heartless) who licked the envelopes anyway, but it's a side of show business most people probably don't want to see.

The article did, correctly, point out that Winchell and Morris haven't done those voices in a while, having been replaced by soundalikes some years back. (Morris was a very busy man, and Winchell's voice, Disney management felt, had become too raspy to sound like himself.) Rather conspicuously, since they illustrated the article with a shot of the Pooh characters, the author didn't mention that Winnie the Pooh himself has been voice by a soundalike since the late Sterling Holloway's retirement in the 1970s. (I know, it's hard to think of someone who's been doing the work for twenty-five years as "the new guy", but he's still "doing" Sterling Holloway.)

A mention of Jim Henson wouldn't have gone amiss here, although puppets and cartoons aren't quite the same thing. The Muppeteers had retired Rowlf (the piano-playing dog) as a speaking part in Henson's memory, although his face still pops up from time to time. (Surely you didn't expect them to retire Kermit the Frog.) Unfortunately, they've reversed themselves on this, and Rowlf has started talking again.

"Something like this is difficult to explain to superiors"

Yahoo (Reuters) | Somebody's sure to notice this...
A Taiwan stock trader mistakenly bought T$7.9 billion ($251 million) worth of shares with a mis-stroke of her computer, meaning her company is looking at a paper loss of more than $12 million and she is looking for a new job.

The trader with Fubon Securities mis-keyed in a small order from Merrill Lynch Monday, creating confusion when many small firms inexplicably surged the 7 percent trading limit.

"Something like this is difficult to explain to superiors," a Fubon executive said Tuesday.

Fubon said that the trader was unfamiliar with new computer systems and would be fired.

"There is a paper loss of more than T$400 million," said the executive.

"However, with a good outlook for stocks in the second half, there are no plans to sell the shares in the near term."

See also Bloomberg.

"A woman with three children under the age of 10 wouldn't think my schedule looked so busy."

1010WINS (AP) | Garrison Keillor Tackling Many Projects
Lake Wobegon's gotten a little more stressful these days. Shooting begins Wednesday on a film version of Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion," bringing him together with director Robert Altman and a star-studded cast including Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Lindsay Lohan.

Lindsay Lohan?

The Sunday paper

Iowa State | The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
By Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs and Steel)

To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our earth isn’t the center of the universe but merely one of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren’t specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other species. Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Parent files complaint about 70 ‘sexually explicit’ books in school libraries
The Fayetteville School District has a procedure for parents to file formal complaints against school library books they find inappropriate.

But what if the number of books is 70?

That’s how many alleged sexually explicit books local resident Laurie Taylor claimed she found during a personal "audit" of the library system.

Taylor, who has filed previous complaints against school library books, claims the books in question contain segments on "threesomes, teenage sexual foreplay, detailed sexual escapades, explicit homosexual affairs, despicable language, dangerous instruction and promotion of sexual behavior."

Taylor listed seven of the alleged objectionable books in an e-mail Wednesday to school board members and Superintendent Bobby New.

They were "The Homo Handbook: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Homo" by Judy Carter, "The Other Woman" by Eric J. Dickey, "Rainbow Boys" by Alex Sanchez, "Doing It" by Melvin Burgess, "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk, "GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens" by Kelly Huegel and "Forever" by Judy Blume.

Wall Street Journal | 'You're Reading...What?'
Hilary Armstrong was happy to see her 12-year-old daughter Katherine reading at the kitchen table one afternoon -- until, that is, she glanced at the back of the book jacket. "I was mortified," says Mrs. Armstrong. The book, which her daughter got from a friend, had a blurb on the back that read, "After all, no one really wants to go to college a virgin."

The San Francisco mom allowed Katherine to finish the novel, one of the popular "Gossip Girl" series, but started keeping closer tabs on her daughter's reading material. She wishes the book business would help out. "It would be nice if they had a big rating on it, like at the movies," Mrs. Armstrong says.

It's the summer book season: Do you know what your child is reading? To appeal to teens brought up on suggestive music videos and cable-TV shows, publishers are releasing more books full of mature themes and unflinching portrayals of sexual activity, with young protagonists the same age as their target readers. One publisher is venturing beyond its titles on dragons and bunnies with "Claiming Georgia Tate," about a 12-year-old girl whose father pressures her into a sexual relationship and makes her dress like a prostitute. In "Looking for Alaska," prep-school students watch pornography and pass the time binge-drinking. Coming this fall is "Teach Me," in which a male high-school teacher has sex with a student.

...The subject matter is rarely clear from a book's title or graphics. "Rainbow Party" features tubes of lipstick on the cover -- though it isn't about girls discussing makeup, but a teen oral-sex party.

I'm such an old fogy.

There goes the neighborhood

Bloomberg.com | Government Power to Take Property Backed by Top Court
Local governments have broad power to take over private property to make way for shopping malls, office parks and sports stadiums, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.

The court said government agencies can constitutionally take property in the name of economic development -- and even transfer it to another private party -- as long as the landowners receive compensation. The 5-4 ruling today came in a case involving land near a Pfizer Inc. plant in New London, Connecticut.

...New London is seeking to raze a residential neighborhood to make room for a five-star hotel, luxury condominiums and office buildings near the Pfizer research facility. The city says it is trying to reverse decades of economic decline.

...New London's development plan, enacted in 2000, calls for the takeover of 115 homes and small businesses in the 90-acre Fort Trumbull neighborhood adjacent to the Pfizer facility.

If it wasn't clear before, it is now: Collective rights are more important than individual rights. The framers of the Constitution really meant that offices are more important than homes, and that big offices are more important than small ones, because local government defines "more important" as "pay more taxes".

I'd rather not know

Rotten Tomatoes | More Serenity Screenings Announced, Sell Out Immediately
"Following the sell-out success of the May 5th pre-screenings, creator Joss Whedon recently announced that advance previews of his movie "Serenity" would appear at twenty theaters in twenty cities, this time on May 26th.

By the next morning, well before the official list of cities was posted, networking fans on the Serenity movie site and elsewhere had diligently located half the listings through trial and error and several of the locations were already sold out. "Serenity" hits theaters wide (which means "normal" people can buy tickets) on September 30th."

I have a feeling that "diligently located half the listings through trial and error" can be translated as "checked Fandango for May 26 listings for the theaters that had hosted the first one", but that doesn't sound quite so investigative. Can I be forgiven for being amused by the idea that some of these "diligent" fans might have mistakenly bought themselves tickets to an advance screening of "Jarhead"?

Perhaps it's just sour grapes that the preview was announced and sold out all while I was sitting in my doctor's office waiting for a blood test.

I realize the film is almost certainly completed by now, since it was originally scheduled for a spring release. These undoubtedly aren't rough cuts being previewed, but essentially the final release version. (I guess it was pushed later to avoid direct competition with, I don't know, isn't there some higher-profile, bigger-budget science-fiction film due to be released this summer? I seem to recall rumors. "Jar Jar Binks II" or something?)

But I have to wonder what audience Universal thinks they're aiming for, with a September 30 release date.

No power in the 'verse

Boston Herald.com | Starship troup-ers: `Serenity' could replace popular sci-fi franchises
When both the ``Star Wars'' and ``Star Trek'' universes reach their final frontiers this month, where will sci-fi addicts next get their fix of the future?
Perhaps in the dark, gritty `` 'verse'' of ``Serenity'' - director Joss Whedon's big-budget movie production of his failed 2002-2003 TV series ``Firefly.''
That's the prediction of some of the 600 enthusiastic fans who packed a special advance screening of ``Serenity'' in Boston Thursday [May 5]. The movie opens Sept. 30.
...When tickets for advance screenings in 10 cities went on sale in April, they sold out within hours. Fans from as far away as Ohio and California came to the Boston screening...

Meanwhile, in Toledo:

Toledo Blade | Galactic debate takes flight
While all eyes in the coming weeks will be on Episode III: Return of the Sith, the final installment in the series of Star Wars films, some already are looking ahead. What they see is an end of an era for two of the biggest names in science fiction history.

This month will mark the passing of not only the final Star Wars movie, but also the latest Star Trek TV series, Enterprise. It's finale is slated for Friday, with no plans for another series to replace it.

The first Star Wars movie debuted in 1977; Star Trek preceded it as a television series in 1966. Since then, we've all learned about all kinds of things - The Force, Vulcans, Ewoks, warp drives.

But one question has yet to be answered: Which is better, Star Trek or Star Wars?

The Blade assembled a panel of local experts to settle the argument once and for all...

Oh, Lord. Shoot me. Shoot me now.

I was right the first time

When J Michael Straczynski gave Gwen Stacy a hitherto-unrevealed sexual liason with Norman (the original Green Goblin) Osborn, I was disgusted. However, because it was JMS, and because he'd earned the benefit of the doubt with his run on Amazing Spider-Man so far, not to mention the television achievement that is Babylon 5, I gave him to the end of the story arc to justify this outrageous plot turn.

It may have been unfair, given his B5 habit of leaving threads dangling for years before paying them off, to expect that he would resolve this story in a mere hundred or so comic-book pages.

Well, the end of "Sins Past" came and went, and nothing was resolved. The kids disappeared, after a blood transfusion from Peter saved Sarah's life, and a dose of Goblin serum drove Gabriel mad. No twist, no cop-out: We are expected to accept that these really are Gwen's kids by Norman Osborn.

And I resolved that this would be the last new Marvel comic I bought. I meant it when I said it.

Cut to several months later. The storyline was continued in another title, Spectacular Spider-Man, written by hell-no-I'm-not-JMS'-protégé Sara "Samm" Barnes. The four-issue arc, "Sins Remembered", has been collected in trade paperback. So far as I am concerned, it represents Marvel's last chance to get me back. After almost forty years of reading Spider-Man, it's hard to say goodbye.

Hm. Gwen's daughter's name is Sarah. The writer's name is Sara. Hmmmm.

When an unknown (to this genre) writer writes a story about a character who has the same name as herself, a character newly introduced into an existing mythos who gets all the good lines while the nominal star of the series gazes at her admiringly, she runs the risk of said character being thought of as a "Mary-Sue".

She's amazingly intelligent, outrageously beautiful, adored by all around her -- and absolutely detested by most reading her adventures. She's Mary Sue, the most reviled character type in media fan fiction. Basically, she's a character representing the author of the story, an avatar, the writer's projection into an interesting world full of interesting people whom she watches weekly and thinks about daily. Sometimes the projections get processed into interesting characters, themselves. Usually, though, they don't.

This one doesn't, either.

"Sins Remembered" is not a Spider-Man story. It is a year-one tale of the Gallopin' She-Goblin, Agent of Interpol. If you are not raptly fascinated by the character of Sarah Stacy, there is nothing here for you. Although brother Gabe appears, he's little more than a cardboard cutout. His function is purely MacGuffinite: Someone for Sarah to protect, someone to threaten Mary Jane, someone who does what he does because the story requires it, not because he has any discernable motivation.

Spider-Man himself appears in costume barely enough to justify the "Spider-Man" logo at the top of the cover. His function is to be supportive--and to be an utterly inept surrogate parent to the physically-mature, legally ten-year-old Sarah.

And, briefly, to be comic relief in his own book. Boy, this scene torques me. In an attempt to web-swing around Paris, Spidey knocks a gargoyle off a cornice. Because, you know, Paris is just so much older than New York City. Didn't his spider-sense get amped up just last issue? Wouldn't you think that if it isn't good for anything else, it'd warn him if he's about to land on something that isn't strong enough to hold him up?

(There's another issue abandoned: The twins, their appearance and medical condition notwithstanding, are minors. Who's their guardian? Does French law care? Shouldn't Peter care? Should I?)

More...

Real world vs school

Denver Post | Charters dent public schools
Lobbing incentives and recruiting aggressively, charter schools have lured thousands of students from traditional metro-area schools, sapping tax dollars from district budgets and forcing some principals and board members to consider something new:

How to compete for students.

Charters are promising laptop computers, trips to the East Coast, experiential learning and a fast track to a college degree. Their principals are donning suits and ties and going door-to-door to talk to parents. They are forming partnerships with private developers to build gleaming facilities in new developments where a regular school might have gone, had the charter not gotten there first.

"We know we won't have any kids if we don't do it," said Kay Frunzi, who runs Denver's Wyatt-Edison Charter School.

In any other line of work, that would tell us that there is a demand for Edison's services. Somehow, here, it's being represented as little better than buying students with expensive perks.

...School officials say charters pose a challenge. For example, in Denver each student is worth about $6,500 a year.

Though Denver Public Schools officials do not track where individual students go, traditional school enrollment has declined by about 4,000 students in four years, while charter and contract-school enrollment has gone up by roughly 4,000 students over the same period.

That said, if the 3,800 new students who have enrolled in Denver charter schools since 2001 were sitting in traditional classroom seats, the district could have an additional $24.7 million a year to work with.

Aha. I had a feeling it wasn't about the students themselves.

But does money just vanish? Doesn't it follow the students? If it doesn't--or even if it does--how do the charter schools manage to do all these things that public schools say they can't afford?

[LATER: Wait a minute. Doesn't this imply that those 3,800 additional students don't actually cost the school system any money? Doesn't it admit that the $6,500 each student is "worth" doesn't actually get spent on that student? Isn't there an implied assumption that there's no particular reason that it should be?]

Theresa Peña, a Denver school-board member and a former US West executive, said she understands that charters have found niches in the marketplace and have responded to what parents want.

"We (DPS) haven't caught up with that," she said. "We will need to give our principals more training and capacity to handle this. Some of them have never been in the business environment where they have to compete."

You mean some of them have? How ...unusual.

But in the end, Peña said, a school will survive if it does well academically.

"We've lost customers because our academic achievement isn't there," she said.

What an interesting thing for a school board member to admit to a newspaper.

Here's a parent's comment:

"During the interview process to get in, I kept thinking, 'My God, they want my kid here,"' she said. "They took time in the summer to conduct testing sessions to gauge academically and socially where he is. They took a good look at him."

There's a wild idea. Wonder if it will catch on.

Happy Urf Day

A recursive reminder from Tempus Fugit and Inštitút pre Slobodnú Spoločnosť.

Too...many...quizzes...

You Are Incredibly Logical

(You got 100% of the questions right) Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

---

English Genius You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 86% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go! Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it! For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

My test tracked 4 variables. How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 76% on Beginner You scored higher than 69% on Intermediate You scored higher than 38% on Advanced You scored higher than 96% on Expert

Link: The Commonly Confused Words Test written by shortredhead78 on Ok Cupid

Monkey with a badge

Yahoo (Reuters) | SWAT Monkey! a Natural for a Television Show
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Send in the SWAT monkey.

It's not an order police commanders are accustomed to giving, but that could change if an Arizona police department follows through on a proposal to train a capuchin monkey for high-risk police operations.

A Special Weapons and Tactics veteran from Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, has researched the possibility of landing a $100,000 federal grant to fund a pilot program to train one monkey.

"Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it," Sean Truelove told the East Valley Tribune, a local newspaper. "It could change the way we do business."

Sure, PETA needs something new to worry about.

Of course I just bought one

The Register | Our phones don't work - Verizon boss
If you're infuriated by your cellphone's lousy reception indoors, stop fretting. It's a feature, not a bug.

So says Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who was interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle's Todd Wallack on Saturday.

"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" he said. "The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement."

They want it to work in movie theaters, they want it to work at funerals...

No surprises

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% Dixie

40% General American English

10% Yankee

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

LATER: So, I gather California (not otherwise accounted for) is "General American English"? And where in this breakdown does the distinctive New Orleans accent belong? And which is "real" Yankee, Noo Yawk or Bahstan?

I know, I know, it's just an Internet quiz.

That's "the WORLD FAMOUS Elongated Man"

Perhaps there's a reason the Elongated Man never made it into the top tier. Too hard to spell. Difficult to pronounce. Doesn't clearly say what his power is. Difficult to work the word into a dynamic logo.

Well, perhaps there are several reasons.

It is difficult to come up with a name that hasn't been used. The Elongated Man dates from 1960, but editor Julius Schwartz has said that if he'd known that DC owned the rights to Plastic Man at the time, he would have used that name instead. He could have gone with Elastic Man, but Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen was having intermittent adventures as "Elastic Lad". Worse, Jimmy and EM both wore relatively featureless purple tights--although Jimmy had the worse taste to actually have "Elastic Lad" on his chest.

Even the Incredibles' "ElastiGirl" was already taken. (Uncharacteristically, she was the "muscle" of the Doom Patrol. She didn't stretch, she grew to gigantic size.*) (I remember reading at IMDB that DC allowed Pixar to use the name in the film so long as it wasn't used in merchandising. There are precious few toys of Pixar's ElastiGirl, and the only one I can find, the cloissone pin, is labelled "Mrs Incredible".)

So, actually, the Elongated Man is the only major stretching superhero whose name doesn't rhyme with "plastic".

Most of them are played for laughs, anyway, with the conspicuous exception of Reed Richards, the Fantastic Four's "Mr. Fantastic". (Usually. Remind me to tell you about the time Dr Doom was bragging about having his own European country and Reed shot back, "I have a hundred pairs of stretch socks!"** But it still rhymes with "plastic".) I suppose when you think about the kind of distortion these characters are theoretically capable of, you could go either grotesque, or goofy.

I'm taking this too seriously, I guess.

* By the way, that green kid on the "Doom Patrol" cover? That's Beast Boy. Yeah, the same one who's currently appearing in "Teen Titans."

** Okay, I cheated. The "stretch socks" scene wasn't in any "real" adventure of the Fantastic Four. It was a parody in the pages of Marvel's short-lived but fondly-remembered "Not Brand Ecch." The funniest part of this uneven humor title was just how short the distance was from Stan Lee's melodrama to out-and-out comedy.

More information: Great Comic Book Database (from whence the covers come): Dibny Dirt, the Elongated Man Website.

You wish

Reset button for the Silver Age

Last week I bought these three comics:




Since DC's promotional preview images don't always have the logos--and sometimes even having them doesn't help--I'll identify these three books: Seven Soldiers of Victory #0, Zatanna #1 (a Seven Soldiers tie-in), and the unnumbered DC Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

For those who think that these two universe-spanning Events are intended to reset the DC Universe to its pre-"Crisis on Infinite Earths" Sweetness and Light atmosphere, I'll commit a thesis-disproving spoiler: In the course of these three books (which I was unfortunate enough to read all at once), twelve heroes die, and a thirteenth is severely injured.

For those keeping score, that would be: Vigilante, Gimmick Girl (aka Merry, Girl of a Thousand Gimmicks), Blue Boy, Dyno-Mite Dan, I, Spyder, The Whip II (Seven Soldiers); Timothy Ravenwind, Ibis, his wife Taia, Dr 13 (Zatanna); Blue Beetle, Skeets, Booster Gold (critically injured) (DC Countdown).

Later: You can't tell the crises without a scorecard (spoilers ahoy).

What are you looking at?

Classically, one of the first signs that you may be outgrowing comic books is when you realize that if you really had x-ray vision, you'd be peeking under people's clothes all the time. This is a thought that mainstream comic book writers and artists used to try not to draw attention to... normally.

So, my question is, now that we've established that Superboy does, in fact, look under people's clothes just for the hell of it... Gosh, there's no easy way to ask this... Why is Lana Lang on this cover? And why is Clark more curious about what new-kid-in-town Gary Crane has under his shirt than...

Well, I guess by this time Lana, how shall I say this, holds no mysteries for him.

Time, see what's become of me

I don't imagine this will stay up for much longer, but you could always set the wayback machine for yesterday and look at it again. How often do you get to see an artifact from 2239?

"I want my hour back!"

National Review | John J Miller: Unhappy Hour
Urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home. They also tried to make a case for agriculture, though they didn't bother to consult any actual farmers.

...Perhaps farmers should take one for the team — i.e., put up with DST even though they don't like it because it keeps city cash registers chinging into the twilight. Yet the contention that DST is good for business is doubtful. It may help some businesses, but it also stands to reason that other ones suffer. If people are more likely to browse the racks at Filene's Basement in the daylight, then they're probably also less likely to go to the movies or take-out restaurants. And in the morning, when it's darker during rush hour, commuters are perhaps disinclined to stop at the corner store for a newspaper or the coffee bar for a latte.

And it has all but killed the already-staggering drive-in movie industry, where the show cannot begin until dark--which now means 9:15 or 9:30 pm.

Which question should I answer first?

So far, I've resisted the temptation to sound off about Terry Schiavo. It's really none of my business.

But I am really getting tired of Terry Schiavo. No, that's not right. What I'm getting tired of is this irrational, ever-intensifying obsession with Terry Schiavo. As with so many issues, what caused it to crystalize in my mind was a question asked by Rush Limbaugh.

But I don't think I arrived at the answer Limbaugh wanted me to make. Neal Boortz wrote an answer for Townhall.com, but it's the wrong answer too. Poor Neal. And now, he says, Sean Hannity won't even return his calls about this issue.

Limbaugh asked, "Why do you people want Terry Schiavo to die?"

What arrogance. As if anyone can prevent it at this late date.

Terry Schiavo died on February 25, 1990. Her remains have been maintained in a grotesque parody of life for over fifteen years. Thanks to modern medical science, it appears that they could continue to achieve this zombie-like state indefinitely, if they wished, for as long as the money holds out. So far, over twenty judges have ruled that enough is too much.

The woman died fifteen years ago. Isn't it about time to bury her?

More supporting documentation:
Wikipedia: Terry Schiavo
Football Fans for Truth: Terri Schiavo FAQ for the Uncommitted

What does it take to get banned?

Greenville News | Some IMAX theaters not screening volcanoes flick
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- The IMAX theater in Charleston and several others in the South have passed on showing a science film on volcanoes because of concerns it might offend those with fundamental religious beliefs.

"We've got to pick a film that's going to sell in our area. If it's not going to sell, we're not going to take it," said Lisa Buzzelli, director of the local IMAX theater. "Many people here believe in creationism, not evolution."

Buzzelli said while the Charleston theater doesn't rule out showing "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" in the future, she considers people's religious views when showing films.

The film makes a connection between human DNA and microbes inside undersea volcanoes. Buzzelli said the handling of evolution was considered in her decision.

IMAX theaters in Texas, Georgia and the Carolinas have declined to show the film, said Pietro Serapiglia who handles distribution for Stephen Low, the film's director and producer who is from Montreal.

"I find it's only in the South," Serapiglia said.

We're never going to outgrow this reputation for being Dukes of Hazzardland at this rate. (See also CNN.)

But wait: That's the filmmaker and distributor talking, and they might have an ulterior motive for beating the publicity drum. Fernbank has made a statement, too:

Centre Daily Times | IMAX documentary gets cold shoulder
LOS ANGELES -- Some IMAX theaters have declined to show "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" -- but is it because of debates about evolution, or is it just a so-so movie?

Filmmakers behind "Volcanoes" said executives at some Southern IMAX theaters told them they worried the movie might rile conservative Christians partly because of its references to the way life may have evolved.

...Executives at several Southern science centers said test audiences disliked the film's music and narration, found the tone too academic, and the deep-sea images lacking in color.

"The scientific team and research on the film was top-notch," said Anita Kern, dean of science at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History, whose IMAX theater chose not to run "Volcanoes." "But when you're doing IMAX films, you're doing it for the general public. What you want is to educate people in very entertaining ways. This film just didn't do it. It was slow moving and a little dry."

Wow. A movie filmed at the bottom of the ocean is a "little dry"? That really hurts. I guess they can't all be "Nemo".

Kern said she did not recall anyone in the museum's test audience making comments about the evolution theories presented in "Volcanoes."

"Volcanoes" filmmaker [Stephen] Low said science centers are calling it a "lousy film" so they do not have to admit they bowed to religious sentiment.

Low could just as easily be blaming lost bookings on "religious sentiment" so he doesn't have to admit it's a lousy film. But goodness knows plenty of lousy films get bookings.

Whatever, it worked: Now that Low has made his accusations, the film is getting enough notice that the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, for one, has changed its mind and plans to run the film after all.

At some point in this story you'll stop believing me

Normally, I'd just link to the story, give it a tsk-tsk and go on my way. But I want to see if this tale strains your credulity as far as it does mine. At what point in this narrative does your train of thought jump the tracks?

• The State of New York requires its teachers to pass a certification test.
• 19,000 teachers take this test each year: About 95% of them pass it.
• The City of New York has been waivered by the State from meeting the requirement due to a lack of qualified teachers.

But... never mind. Keep going.

• Middle School 142 is, according to the Daily News, "one of the city's most dysfunctional schools."
  
• Wayne Brightly is a teacher at M.S. 142.
• Brightly has been teaching since 1992, full time since 1998.
• He has taken this test every year. He has never passed it.
  
• If he fails it again, he may lose his job. (Even New York's patience is not endless, I guess.)
  
• Brightly sought tutoring from one Rubin Leitner.
• Brightly, 38, has a Master's in history from Brooklyn College. Leitner, 58, is an Asperger's syndrome patient with degrees in American and Asian history from Brooklyn College. They met in the college's alumni office.
  
• Tutoring having failed, Brightly paid Leitner to take the test for him.
• Brightly paid Leitner $2.
• Brightly is 38, black, tall and thin. Leitner is 58, white, short and overweight.
  
• Brightly arranged for fake IDs for Leitner, so that no one would question his veracity.
• No one did.
• Leitner aced the test. (!)
  
• He scored so well that the State got suspicious.

Pardon me, I'm laughing so hard I can't type.

• They also noticed that "Brightly's" handwriting had changed.

But not that he'd turned white and aged twenty years. You are who your ID says you are, and that's that, apparently.

MS 142 is one of the city's most dysfunctional schools. Fewer than 20% of its students perform at or above grade level; its principal was fired last year for incompetence. It's the type of school that experienced teachers flee, leaving children to the mercies of teachers like Brightly.

Is it actually possible that Brightly is the best they can do?

Sources: NY Daily News (front page); New York Times; New York Daily News (editorials, 2nd item).

No child left behind, so far as they know

Ann Arbor News | Parents wait all night in freezing weather to enroll kids in preschool
88 people in line by 7 a.m. to fill out registration sheets

The last time Kristin Carney was willing to wait for hours in a long line, it was for tickets to a Prince concert. For Pam Chaundy, it was for tickets to a U2 concert.

But on March 18 the hot ticket was a place in a popular three-day-a-week, morning preschool program for 4-year-olds. Both women, now moms, were trying to get their youngsters enrolled in the Tot Spot, Brighton's popular preschool program.

"My husband Chris got here at 10 p.m. Thursday night," said Carney. "He wore a snowmobile suit and slept in a sleeping bag in his car after starting a sign up list on the door. I thought he was crazy going at 10, but he proved me wrong because if I was behind these ladies who got here at midnight, our daughter wouldn't have gotten in the class we wanted."

I fully expect this will be the case at Atlanta Public Schools' Office of Student Placement this spring, when they begin accepting applications for what used to be called "administrative transfers"--which is to say, to beg them to allow your child to attend a school other than the one he'd otherwise be geographically zoned into. We've been there several times over the past seven years.

The only real difference is that Atlanta's weather is generally a little more temperate than Michigan's.

Actually, I appreciate the reminder, since the administrative transfer is one of APS' best-kept secrets. Here's what you get when you go to their web site and click on the "Student Transfers" link.

At least, I get an empty page. Your mileage may vary.

Here's the information you're supposed to get: three PDF documents from Atlanta Public Schools. The Placement Letter to parents (informing them that the option of transferring their child is available); FAQ about Student Placement 2005-2006; and the Application form.

They accept applications for transfers from April 18 through May 27. In theory. In practice, if you aren't in line when the office opens at 8:00 am on the first day, you won't get your transfer.

LATER: Finally found out what's going on with the empty page. If you have the current version of Adobe Acrobat Reader (7.0) and MS Internet Explorer, you'll see an embedded display of Dr Hall's letter. Any lesser Reader, or any other browser, fails. Is there anything in this document that requires Acrobat? No. It could easily have been simple HTML text, readable in any browser, but for technological tunnel vision.

Twos?

Decatur Daily Democrat | Sign slowed gasoline price rise to top $2
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) - Some customers may have thought it was simple justice. Alas, it was technology that prevented a gas station's sign from displaying any price $2 or higher.

Byron Wheeler, who owns a Byco gas station, said he kept prices below the $2 mark for five days last week because the station's electronic sign couldn't display a ''2'' in the dollar position.

Wheeler said the company is upgrading the sign, which has been in place at the station's convenience store since the business opened in 1991. But until the sign can be brought up to speed, Wheeler is displaying only the time and temperature.

And, those five days last week will be only a memory to customers.

''It brought customers in,'' Wheeler said. ''We had some fun with it.''

Now, I'd expect that kind of problem with signs that use physical numbers, not electronic displays.

Tennesseean | Gas station owners' dilemma: too few twos
It turns out that when regular gas prices top $2 a gallon, it can be a pain for station owners, too — sometimes there aren't enough twos to go around for their signs.

As average prices for regular unleaded topped the $2 mark in Nashville yesterday, there's been a growing demand for the number 2 from some convenience-store and gas-station owners, said Bobby Joslin of Joslin and Son Sign Co.

''The large numbers cost about $150 each, so stores don't keep a large inventory of them around,'' Joslin said yesterday.

''We did get a few calls for threes in California,'' [said Bobbie Shosty, marketing director of May Advertising in Fort Worth, Texas].

Again?

Yahoo News (Reuters) | 'Lord of the Rings' to Take to Stage as Musical
LONDON (Reuters) - After setting cinema box office records around the world, "The Lord of the Rings" is to take to the stage as a musical, the producers announced to Reuters on Tuesday.

The show, based on the fantasy classic by J.R.R. Tolkien, is to open in March 2006 in Toronto and come to London six months later.

But the producers have promised to go back to the original tale of Middle Earth and not try to reproduce the dazzling special effects from the movie trilogy, which earned $3 billion worldwide and garnered a string of Oscars (news - web sites).

"We are ultimately dependent on 50 actors and musicians to tell the story rather than technology," producer Kevin Wallace said as he announced details of the 27 million Canadian dollar (11.5 million pound) musical.

"We are going to have to break new ground. It is a hybrid of text, music, spectacle and physical theater," he added.

And this is different from every other stage musical...how?

You can't make me

Patriot-News | Case opens eyes of driver seeking shut-eye photo
Billy Reed just lost a 19-month battle to protect his rights, or what he believes is his right to have his eyes closed in his driver's license photo.

But Reed, 49, of Fleetwood, Berks County, said he might appeal yesterday's Commonwealth Court ruling against him to the state Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court rejected Reed's arguments in a published opinion, in which it found that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's requirement that subjects keep their eyes open for the photograph is reasonable.

Reed claimed there is no law supporting PennDOT's position and that the law requires only that a person submit to a photograph. He argued that PennDOT was violating his right to freedom of expression, due process and his "right to happiness."

"Petitioner's only argument regarding his right to freedom of expression is that the Department's policy denies him this right," Judge James Gardner Colins wrote for the court. "Petitioner simply states 'PENNDOT is currently doing its darndest to upset my happiness.'

"Keeping one's eyes open and looking straight ahead while being photographed for a driver's license is a minuscule requirement that Petitioner must deal with if he wants his license."

So much time, so much trouble spent fighting the wrong battles.

"The rabbit's name seems to have little effect on shopping habits"

Palm Beach Post | Mall bunnies hunt for neutral names
The Easter Bunny is a vanishing breed.

Not that there's a shortage of 6-foot white rabbits carrying baskets of colored eggs. It's just that Mr. Shopping Mall Bunny is becoming more politically correct.

The bunny at The Gardens mall Easter egg hunt last weekend — oops, make that just plain "egg hunt" — was called Garden Bunny.

"The name just complemented The Gardens of the Palm Beaches," mall Marketing Director Jeannie Roberts said.

... The rabbit's name seems to have little effect on shopping habits. "I'm not really sure how religious the bunny is," The Gardens' Roberts said.

She's right. The origin of the Easter Bunny dates to the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility, Oestre or Eastre, whose mythical companion was the ultimate symbol of fertility, the hare.

Over the centuries the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus became entwined with the pagan celebration of the annual rebirth of life each spring. German immigrants brought the Easter rabbit across the Atlantic in the late 1800s, and he's become the secular symbol of the Easter season.

Hm. So the Christians have taken such a firm hold of the goddes Oestre that invoking her name is too controversial?

You know, some things just don't bear too much thinking about. We're talking about the theological implications of marshmallow eggs.

Next up: The annual December visit from the jolly old elf himself, er... Kris Kringle.

Oh, yaah, ya wanna super-size that, OK?

Yahoo News (Reuters) | Look Who's Talking at the Drive-Through
McDonald's Corp. wants to outsource your neighborhood drive-through. The world's largest fast-food chain said on Thursday it is looking into using remote call centers to take customer orders in an effort to improve service at its drive-throughs.

"If you're in L.A.... and you hear a person with a North Dakota accent taking your order, you'll know what we're up to," McDonald's Chief Executive Jim Skinner told analysts at the Bear Stearns Retail, Restaurants & Apparel Conference in New York. Call center professionals with "very strong communication skills" could help boost order accuracy and ultimately speed up the time it takes customers to get in and out of the drive-throughs, the company said.

You know, the more I think about this the more sense it makes. The customer and the order-taker can't see each other in most drive-throughs: Does it really matter if the order-taker isn't actually in the building? Thanks to modern telecommunications, the cost of an always-on voice line is negligible. And most fast-food employees' microphone skills are abysmal: It would be a genuine pleasure to deal with someone who knew how to speak. English. Clearly.

On the other hand, my manurometer begins to quiver when I remember how other companies have implemented remote call-centers. When they start talking about how much more efficient it is, I know they mean "cheaper". The first time I pull up to my neighborhood McDonald's and hear a New Delhi accent, I'm a'goin' to Burger King.

"Lovecraft would plotz"

Boing Boing | Lovecraftian mockumentary about Cthulhoid Woodstock
Garage rockers with DV cameras are making a mockumentary about a sixties rock festival in Arkham that goes awry when the hippies open up the Necronomicon instead of the Whole Earth Catalog.

"Du-u-ude."

"You've got to act crazy to keep from going crazy"

Anchorage Daily News | Man turns on sprinklers to create a tower of ice
For a guy who doesn't like winter, John Reeves sure has a funny way of showing it.

How else do you explain the nearly 150-foot-tall, prehistoric-looking tower of ice Reeves has grown -- and continues to grow -- next to the Steese Highway eight miles north of Fairbanks?

...With nothing more than a well, a pump, some 1-inch copper pipe and a regular old Fairbanks winter, Reeves has created something that is absurdly Alaska.

"It's unique on the planet," said Reeves, standing next to his masterpiece on a sunny Saturday. "It's not like anybody else has one of these things."

For those who thought Northern Exposure painted an unrealistic picture of the average Alaskan. (Why does a man who professes not to like winter live in Alaska?)

"Why?" "It's the law." "What law?"

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Grounded: Millionaire John Gilmore stays close to home while making a point about privacy
SAN FRANCISCO -- John Gilmore's splendid isolation began July 4, 2002, when, with defiance aforethought, he strolled to the Southwest Airlines counter at Oakland Airport and presented his ticket.

The gate agent asked for his ID.

Gilmore asked her why.

It is the law, she said.

Gilmore asked to see the law.

Nobody could produce a copy. To date, nobody has. The regulation that mandates ID at airports is "Sensitive Security Information." The law, as it turns out, is unavailable for inspection.

There are things, I'll grant, that the government may conceal from general knowledge. I'll further concede that some of those things it shouldn't even explain why they are secret, because that would reveal too much.

But the law that gives them the power to do it is - must be - in the public domain.

"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world"

The Register | FCC 'crosses the line' with broadcast flag - court
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) overstepped its authority by requiring devices capable of receiving digital TV broadcasts to recognize data called a 'broadcast flag' that can prevent copying, a federal judge has said.

US Circuit Judge Harry Edwards told the FCC that it had "crossed the line" when it required DRM technology to be included in all DTV devices on sale in the USA from 1 July. This would include TVs, set top boxes, PC tuner cards, VCRs, DVD players, and similar devices.

The FCC argued that its ancillary powers authorize it to regulate the reception of broadcasts, not just their transmission. While Congress did not authorize the Commission to regulate the proper designs of the devices, it also didn't expressly forbid it, which FCC takes as a license to issue specifications.

"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world," judge Edwards observed.

Judge David Sentelle wondered if FCC thought it could regulate washing machines, since Congress didn't expressly forbid that, either.

Warms the cockles of my heart, it does.

Where is that dusty old document... Ah, there it is:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Seems pretty clear to me.

Great minds

I used this concept (the natural extension of linked databases for looking up customer information) in a parody bank commercial for ARTC back in 1997, but I have to admit that I've been topped. This new version, a flash animation commissioned by the ACLU, starts with a pizza order. (Heard it from Neal Boortz.)

You could think of it as a glimpse of the near future, if it makes you feel better, but the technology to do it is in place right now. And given the recent attempt to have public schools include your child's body fat index on his report card (not to mention having the kids wear radio frequency ID badges to track their movements), it's obvious that the inclination to use it in this manner is there too.

Ooh, that last story. "Nobody on this campus knows every student," the principal says. Well, who decided it was more efficient to have six hundred kids in an elementary school? (There's no law that says elementary schools have to be that big, but that's the current trend. Why? Because certain kinds of federal matching funds are only available to schools of that size, and most local school boards will jump through any hoop to get those matching funds. Don't get me started.)

Unintended Consequences

CBS News | States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile
College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment.

"I was paying about $500 a month," says Just.

So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW.

And what kind of mileage does he get?

"The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just.

And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead.

Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."

...The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car's odometer to calculate how much you owe.

The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use. That's an idea that could break the bottleneck on California's freeways.

And wipe those smug smiles off the hybrid owners' faces. I probably shouldn't even mention that car prices will go up, since they'll be required to include a GPS to facilitate highway tax collection.

A lot of trouble to go to, just to be sure all those scofflaws with their hybrid gas/electric cars still pay their "fair share". I wonder how they plan to hit the all-electric drivers? Maybe they figure that with their limited range between rechargings, they don't cover enough miles to be worth it.

Hey, this should lower the taxes for those evil SUV drivers, shouldn't it?

One man's terrorist is another man's... neighbor?

Yahoo News (AP) | Rooster Recording Terrorizes Neighbors
BERLIN - A couple in northern Germany terrorized their neighbors by playing sounds of a rooster crowing in the middle of the night, police said Tuesday.

Sleep-deprived, the neighboring couple reported to police in the town of Wacken three times over the past week, saying the pair in the other half of their semidetached house seemed to have left a rooster in their home while on vacation.

The animal crowed "at an enormous volume" for 20 minutes between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., the couple told police.

Police entered the home Monday and discovered a recording set on a timer to play daily, with the speaker placed directly against the neighbors' wall. The 55-year-old man and his 50-year-old wife, still on vacation, were cited for causing bodily harm and disturbing the peace, police said.

Investigators said the motive was unclear because there was no known strife between the neighbors.

I'd be the first to admit that this would be extremely annoying, and I'd've called the police myself. "Disturbing the peace"? Surely. "Causing bodily harm"? That's a bit of a stretch.

But "terrorized"? Is that what the AP stylebook calls it these days?

"Artist Stan Lee"?

I don't watch a lot of TV, none of it on Wednesday nights, so I didn't see the big show... by which I mean, of course, 60 Minutes and its story about Stan Lee's lawsuit against Marvel Comics. (What's that? Something else was on? State of the... what?)

But Mark Evanier did see it, and has some comments and follow-up. As with most mainstream media, CBS News' reporters don't understand how comics are created, and referred to "artist Stan Lee" without knowing or caring (pick one or both) that Stan is a writer. It's possible they don't know comics have writers.

The show also perpetuates the myth that Stan created Marvel Comics singlehandedly out of thin air. This Mark blames on CBS, not Stan. Stan Lee is not shy about self-promotion, it's true, but (according to Mark, who would know) he's also sensitive to charges that he takes credit for things he didn't do, and is careful to point out in interviews that (to pick two conspicuous examples) Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko had a lot to do with it as well.

It's not Stan's fault that, in the few minutes of footage they used, they chose not to mention that Stan even had colloborators, let alone name them.

But here's the part I like:

It's the responsibility of any TV reporter to do at least a little independent fact-checking on their interviewees. Can you imagine a newsman going out to do a story on Paul McCartney who didn't know of John Lennon? I don't know how you could fact-check Stan Lee in the slightest and not discover that Spider-Man has been hailed by everyone, including Stan himself, as the joint creation of Lee and Ditko.

...And just think: As I write this, these people are covering the State of the Union address, the War in Iraq and the proposals for revamping Social Security...all, probably, with the same dedication to accuracy.

Every bit of it, I'm sure. It's a wonder they get George W. Bush's job title right. That's probably why they put it on the podium when he speaks.

UPDATE: See also Variety's Bags and Boards and Comicon.com's The Beat.

I'll take "The Flippin' Obvious" for $100, Alex

Yahoo News (AP) | Bush Pushing Agenda in State of Union
I thought he was going to discuss whether Mickey Mouse was cuter before they started drawing pupils in his eyes.

Sorry, you didn't phrase it in the form of a question.

Not an Onion headline

Yahoo News (AP) | DiCaprio Gets Lifetime Achievement Award
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - On the heels of an Oscar nomination, "The Aviator" star Leonardo DiCaprio wrapped a high-flying week by accepting the Platinum Award from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

... "It's a lifetime achievement award, which is completely and utterly surreal, given I'm only 30 years old," he continued, with a laugh. "But, you know, what has it been? Almost 17 years now. I've done quite a few films. But what's really exciting, for me, is that this is what I really love doing. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life."

You know, this could be a subtle way of telling him his career is over. Or should be.

Whatever happened to...?

William Messner-Loebs' run on the Comico version of Jonny Quest was without equal. His version of Jonny's departed mother was far better than Hanna-Barbera's own, when they got around to telling the tale. His other work (Journey, The Flash, Wonder Woman) wasn't half bad, either. It's a shame that, after a whopping four years away from the comic-book biz, the editors seem to have forgotten his name.

Whatever happened to Bill Messner-Loebs?

LATER: There's more, from Newsarama.

I love the web

And now, for your amuseuemt and edification: Six of the best known motion pictures of the last half century (plus three iconic slasher films)... Condensed to thirty seconds and re-enacted by bunnies.

Darth Tater

Once a potato, always a potato.

It's getting easier to spot these things

You know, it really doesn't bother me that the Democrats are making a concerted effort to take over the "Letters to the Editor" section of every newspaper in the country. I've seen plenty of letter-writing campaigns before, and every one of them warns participants to write their own letter and not to copy the sample. And many ignore that advice. What surprises me is that newspapers are falling for it.

I saw it in the Wall Street Journal, and at Boortz' Nealz Nuze. Considering the sources, I was prepared to believe the phenomenon wasn't as widespread as they made it sound. So I conducted an experiment, which I encourage you to duplicate. Do a Google search for the first few words of the letter: "President Bush is endangering my retirement and the retirements of millions..." (No need to go beyond that: Google limits its search queries to ten words.)

The WSJ reports five nearly-identically-worded letters. I get seventeen, although the further you read, the more they begin to paraphrase. Nobody bothers to change that first sentence, though. (But then, my sample is skewed: That's what I searched for.) And that's only the papers whose letter columns are web-searchable.

Here's someone who claims to have actually written the letter, and of course I've no reason to doubt it--other than those other sixteen results. (Scroll down to the fourth post, from "LNAB".)

Great casting

I don't want to get into the various reasons why I (unlike so many people I know) am not utterly enthralled by the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and am not counting the days until the release of the big-screen movie, but I have to say it was a stroke of genius to cast Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android. Can't you just hear that lovely, contemptuous voice saying:

Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust or just fall apart where I'm standing?

Now I know you're making it up

Okay, Australia does have a reputation for importing animals that destroy the local ecology. I know about the bunnies that now wash across the outback in massive seething tides. I know about the foxes that were imported to control the bunnies, but developed a taste for the slower-moving wallaby and left the bunnies alone.

I even know about the golden eagles that have forgotten how to hunt, preferring to lounge around the dingo fences and wait for the bunnies to pile up.

Faced with these disasters, you'd think the Australians would have learned their lesson, but no, there's also the cane toad, which they imported to control insect pests in the sugar cane crop, but which no local species will eat because they are actually poisonous.

Nor are these the only examples.

But, c'mon. Half a million feral camels? Yes.

Camels and Rubber Duckies

This is what happens when you follow random links. I was at the Accordion Guy's page (see previous), and there was this link on the side labeled Camels and Rubber Duckies. I ask you, would you have been able to resist?

Anyway, that took me to Tucows' developers' page, The Farm, and the above image (wouldn't that make great wallpaper?), which in turn links to an essay called, not too surprisingly by this point, Camels and Rubber Duckies. The surprise is that it's by Joel Spolsky, whose Fog Creek Software markets the excellent web site management program I use, CityDesk.

Joel may think this article is about pricing software, but actually it's about pricing just about anything.

"The internet has helped to polarize people."

Here's a look at the 2004 election in which the words "cowboy," "Vietnam" and "red/blue" are never spoken. It's quite refreshing, and fascinating. Joey deVilla, the "Accordion Guy," presents his notes from the Internet+Society 2004 Conference, held Dec 9-11, sponsored by the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School.

(The participants in this panel are: Chair: Prof. Heather Gerken, Harvard Law School; Chuck DeFeo, eCampaign manager, Bush-Cheney '04; Zack Exley, Director of Online Communication and Organization, Kerry-Edwards 2004; Prof. Sunshine Hillygus, Harvard University; Dan Gillmor, journalist, San Jose Mercury News and SiliconValley.com.)

Microsoft may start charging extra for software that works

Yes, that's Fark's headline for this story, and I wanted to say "Don't you think that's overreacting?", but the more I read, the more I agree.

CNN.com - Microsoft may charge extra for security software
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. disclosed plans Thursday to offer frustrated users of its Windows software new tools within 30 days to remove spyware programs secretly running on computers. But it might cost extra in coming months.

In a shift from past practice, the world's largest software manufacturer said it may charge consumers for future versions of the new protective technology, which Microsoft acquired by buying a small New York software firm.

...Microsoft's tool, expected to be available within 30 days, initially will be free but the company isn't ruling out charging for future versions. "We're going to be working through the issue of pricing and licensing," Nash said. "We'll come up with a plan and roll that out."

Linux developers, get ready. Your window of opportunity (so to speak) is imminent.

LATER: What do you mean, we don't actually own the software? We bought the company!

Holiday Self-Promotion

ARTC will be appearing at Memorial Hall at Stone Mountain Park to share a few of our favorite Christmas memories. Showtimes are 2pm and 4pm on Saturday and Sunday, December 11 and 12.

I might also observe that radio drama makes an economical and unique gift.

LATER: Just took advantage of Blogger timewarp to move this entry up. It looks like we're doing darned near a three hour Christmas marathon. And at that, we're going to have to leave out some scripts to make it fit. It'll be a fun show: Drop by.

Sunday morning protesters

Actually, that's not an insult, or a reference to Sunday (or Monday) morning quarterbacks. It's the literal truth. Photodude has something to say about the upcoming 51 Capital March, in which literally dozens of outraged voters will march on all fifty State Capitols, and the Federal Capitol, to protest the widespread fraud that created and perpetuated the absurd illusion that George Bush actually won the Presidential election.

Specifically, Reid observes that the organizers fit the stereotyle of Godless liberals, since they've scheduled their protest for noon on Sunday, December 12th. Either they wanted to keep the church-goers away (they would have been overwhelmingly Republican anyway, right?), or there simply are no church-goers among the organizing committee to have noticed this conflict.

I posted a comment there, but I'm so in love with the sound of my own voice that I'll post it again here:

I’m sure they were going for the synchronicity of twelves (the date is 12/12, the announced time is 12:00, and who’ll wager that the recorded beginning of the protest, or else a moment of silence, is set for twelve minutes after the hour?), just as local Veterans’ Day activities were scheduled for 11:11am on 11/11. They hope to make the event look more Significant by so doing. People love meaningless numerical convergence. (Are they correcting for different time zones?)

Yes, this particular group of Democrats is obviously not composed of church-goers. It is my perception, though, that politicians and activists at either end of the spectrum only mention God when they think He will deliver votes.

Who do they figure is going to be at the State Capitol on Sunday morning to witness them? If a placard falls in the middle of a rally and no one sees it, does it make a sound?

Maybe I'll set the VCR to catch the Sunday noon news to see if anyone does a live remote.

I know it's not spam 'cause it says so

After all, it says I signed up to receive this e-mail, and they wouldn't lie, would they?

It claims to be "From Microsoft and the Saprizo.com team!" and it tells me that I've won an X-Box. Of course, I never signed up for any X-Box giveaway, but the page hints that this particular prize was added later, and there are any number of sites that require an e-mail address, so I might have given it to someone who's giving away an X-Box. (This particular mail came to the address I give to people I don't want to have my address...)

Anyway, it almost looked credible. The e-mail mentioned a "pass code number" I'll need to claim the prize. The destination page wants my address. Well, that makes sense: How's it going to mail me anything without my address?

I'm going to have to pay shipping, it says, just to prove I'm an adult and eligible to win contests. On the form, the payment method says "debit card" (interesting default) but it's in a drop down box so I should be able to choose the disputable credit card... And when you click the drop-down arrow there's no other option. Interesting. The form goes on to ask for my debit card number, expiration date and PIN red alert red alert red alert...

Well, I'm glad it wasn't spam.

The page is gone now. I wonder whose "team" this will be from the next time I see it?

The good news is, dialups are relatively safe

PC Authority | Unprotected PCs fall to hacker bots in four minutes
The lifespan of a poorly protected PC connected to the internet is a mere four minutes, research released this week claims. After that, it's owned by a hacker.

In the two week test, marketing communications firm AvanteGarde deployed half a dozen systems in "honeypot" style, using default security settings. It then analysed the machines' performance by tallying the attacks, counting the number of compromises, and timing how long it took an attack to successfully hijack a computer once it was connected to the internet.

The six machines were equipped with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1), Microsoft Windows XP SP1 with the free ZoneAlarm personal firewall, Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Macintosh OS X 10.3.5, and Linspire's distribution of Linux.

Surprisingly, most of the machines resisted attacks for the two weeks of the trial, the XP machines because of the firewalls (yes, even the one that comes with XP works if it's turned on), Linux because it's, well, Linux, and the Mac because, although numerous bots tried, and many of them could have succeeded, all of them were Windows-targeted. One good Mac hacker could destroy the illusion that Macs are immune to such things--but who wants to put that much time into crippling 2% of the market?

Any publicity is good publicity

...for the Nude Calendar Watch, not that it normally needs any. But since a billing snafu temporarily took the site down, I thought I'd celebrate that it is back up with this story about the only group of people who protest when another "nude" charity calendar comes out.

Daily Record | Get 'em On!
NATURISTS are demanding people who appear in nude charity calendars put their clothes back on. Organisations representing 25,000 naturists say sports teams, students and Women's Institute groups who bare all are giving naturism 'a bad name'.

They say the comical depictions of nudity - often showing intimate parts hidden behind objects such as cider presses and firemen's hoses - give the impression the naked body is something to be ashamed of.

Barry Pickett, director of the Association of British Naturist Clubs, branded the fixation with naked calendars as 'absolutely pathetic'.

He added: 'I'd like to see these calendars stopped. Enough is enough. It's gimmicky and it gives naturism a bad name.

'They always show people covering up behind cricket stumps or whatever, as if they are ashamed of their nudity.'

More than 100 naked calendars are published every year.

Really? I've only got 40 listed for 2005. I need to do some Googlin'.

Filler for the holidays

AP Wire (Myrtle Beach Online) | Study: TV Shows Gravitate to the Coasts
NEW YORK - As far as TV is concerned, much of the country outside of Los Angeles and New York City is flyover territory.

Those two cities account for just under half of the fictional settings for prime-time television shows going back to 1948, according to a new study by a media agency. California and New York state are settings nearly 60 percent of the time - even though those states make up less than 19 percent of the nation's population.

..."I knew a lot of shows seem to be in New York and L.A., but I didn't expect it to be so concentrated," said Rob Frydlewicz of Carat Insight, a company that studies TV trends for advertisers and conducted the research.

..."As much as many people don't like to be in New York and Los Angeles, they're fascinated by the people who live in these two cities," Frydlewicz said.

Now, I realize that many of the stories we see over Thanksgiving only exist to fill space between advertisements in the weekend newspapers. For that reason, I don't want to read too much into this. But it may say something about just how coast-centric the TV networks are no matter how you interpret this:

1. they needed a study to tell them most shows are set in New York or L.A.
2. they think that, after all this time, it's news to us that this is true
3. they think that those of us in Flyover Country are no less than fascinated by Big City Life.

I guess I'll go back to Green Acres now.

I wish I were surprised...

...but no, it really isn't surprising at all that most of our Congresspeople didn't read, cover to cover, a 1,000 page bill rushed through in the closing days of a lame-duck Congress. Nor is it unusual. The vast majority of bills are read only by assistants and interns: Our Elected Officials get summaries prepared by their staffs. (Staves?) At this point, maybe the interns aren't reading them either.

Nor is it unusual, sadly, that "a provision allowing the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees, or their agents, to examine the tax returns of any American" found its way into an "omnibus spending" bill. At least it's about appropriations: Most tack-on provisions have much less to do with the subject of the core bill. But this is such a monumentally bad idea that you have to wonder if it wasn't put there with the intent of derailing the omnibus bill.

The root problem here is that they're trying to do too much. If they were to restrict themselves to their Constitutionally-defined responsibilities, they could've been home for the holidays by now, and we'd all be better off.

And the finger-pointing begins. Sigh. Did you know that both of those committee chairmen who'll get to see your tax returns happen to be Republicans? (Well, they are the majority party, it's not unusual that they have a few plum committee chairmanships.) Look at the CNN quotes, beginning and ending with a defensive Frist ("Accountability will be carried out"? Doesn't sound too forceful, does it?) with a cream-filling of indignant Democrats (and McCain, an honorary Democrat) trying to sound resolute, trying not to admit they didn't read the bill either. And since it so obviously is a naked Republican power grab, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) plans to nakedly grab right back (although I'm not proud of that mental picture).

[Democratic Sen. Charles] Schumer said Pelosi told him she planned to hold up consideration of the bill in the House "until we find out who put this provision in."

Boy, if some Democrat staffer stuck it in there knowing it would reflect poorly on the Senate and House majority leaders and appropriations committee chairmen (Republicans all), well, that's just gonna suck, innit? Of course, I'm not saying a Republican might not have done it, just that it's a little premature to assume so.

Anyway, better hurry, Ms P: The interim resolution that postponed a government shutdown expires on December 3.

Which leads me to the part that really grabbed my eye:

A military plane flew that resolution to Chile, where Bush was attending the APEC summit, so the president could sign it to avoid any disruption of government.

How have we reached the point where assigning a military plane to fly a few pieces of paper to Chile (and, presumably, back) doesn't sound outrageous?

LATER: So, it was a Republican. But he didn't mean it. Right. But if the wording in the bill isn't the wording he wrote, then who writes these things? Even the best possible interpretation doesn't make me feel any better.

It Isn't Censorship, chapter XXIV

Editor and Publisher | WashingtonPost.com Drops Ted Rall's Cartoons
WashingtonPost.com is no longer running the cartoons of hard-hitting liberal Ted Rall. Rall said he thinks the site dropped his work because of a Nov. 4 cartoon he did showing a drooling, mentally handicapped student taking over a classroom. "The idea was to draw an analogy to the electorate -- in essence, the idiots are now running the country," he told E&P.

Interesting how Rall gets the first and last word, as well as most of the words in between, including dropping the "C" word.

The Universal Press Syndicate creator said "I don't think censorship is ever the answer," mentioning that he publicly opposed campaigns to fire or boycott conservatives Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlessinger for that reason.

Rall -- who said WashingtonPost.com kept running him after his controversial cartoons about Pat Tillman (earlier this year) and "terror widows" -- hopes the site will reconsider "depriving readers of one of the most stridently liberal voices in the media at a time when liberal values are under ferocious attack."

*Heh* "Liberal values." I don't think I've ever heard that phrase before. Jeez, lose one election and suddenly you're "under attack". Chill. Drink less latte.

Anyway, I feel obligated to point out that what has happened here is that a newspaper editor has made the decision not to purchase a product from its author. It requires an awfully, er, liberal definition of "censorship" to take the word to mean that authors can force publishers to buy all of their work having once successfully sold them any of it.

"But you have to listen to me!" Well, actually, no, I don't. Your freedom of speech is not curtailed at all by the fact that I'm ignoring you. By all means, speak on.

This doesn't help

NRO | Red-State TV
One of the election lessons for Democrats is that while the Left doesn't understand the Right, the Right can't help but understand the Left, because the Left is in charge of pop culture. Urban blue staters can go their entire lives happily innocent of the world of church socials and duck hunting and Boy Scout meetings, but small-town red staters are exposed to big-city blue-state values every time they turn on the TV.

I wish the rest of the article was as good as the first paragraph. Unfortunately, it's just as guilty of stereotyping "red-state values" as any "progressive" I've ever heard. I've never seen three of the four programs named (although my son has developed a taste for "Blue-Collar TV", but then he also watches "Steve Harvey's Big Show" and "Fear Factor", what can I tell you).

Why, whatever could he mean?

MSNBC/Newsweek | Can Mr. Bill Clean Up Your IN Box?
As much as three fourths of all mail sent on the Internet is spam—unwanted, often disgusting or fraudulent brickbats tossed in your in box. We waste hours deleting this stuff—or, if we have software to do the work for us, we worry about urgent missives mistakenly tossed into the garbage bin. But now comes a voice assuring us that not only spam but other infuriating digital maladies will be dramatically reduced. Who's saying that Viagra come-ons and Nigerian bank scammers will be rarer than white tigers? Bill Gates.

... Gates's upbeat outlook on security seems to reflect that of another leader who talks of continuing progress as the news contradicts him.

Oh? Who would that be?

(The Gods of Irony require me to point out that the text of this article was obscured by in-line ads when I first opened it in, of all things, pop-up-resistant Mozilla Firefox. And that the site is co-owned by Microsoft, who will...protect us from spam?)

More Self-Promotion

The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company will be appearing at Onstage Atlanta (whose theater, unexpectedly, is at Suburban Plaza in Decatur) Friday night at 10:30pm.

This is our final night at this venue, anchored by Thomas E. Fuller's "The Last Dragon to Avondale", which is, coincidentally, the station where one would disembark to get there by MARTA. If you dare. (Bus route #125.)

Forget everything else, explain this

Yahoo (E! Online) | Moore Fires Up "Fahrenheit" Sequel
"Fifty-one percent of the American people lacked information [on election day] and we want to educate and enlighten them," the lefty writer-director told Variety. "They weren't told the truth. We're communicators and it's up to us to start doing it now."

How, how, in the name of Saint Susan Sarandon, how can anyone believe that the reason the Democrats lost is that they didn't get their message out?