This DJs from Mars track was an unexpected pleasure, this morning:
Year: 2010 Page 3 of 25
Portastatic’s I Wanna Know Girls:
(Fanvid, featuring Keith Newton’s I Lived Among Girls)
Next time you see Rep. Moran, let him know what you think of his position on the TSA’s new nude-photo-or-get-your-genitals-groped policies:
Northern Virginia Rep. Jim Moran (D) dismissed the recent wave of privacy concerns generated by controversial Transportation Security Administration screening practices, saying: “I could care less whether somebody feels me up.â€
[ . . . ]
“You know, it there’s intrusiveness, if it makes you shy or embarrassed or whatever, I’m sorry,” Moran continued. “You just go with the flow. That’s life in the 21st century. I don’t have much sympathy for the privacy advocates on that.”
No, Rep. Moran, you don’t just go with the flow. Â In fact, let me remind you what you are expected do:
- “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”
Try it in this instance. Â Your constituents will appreciate your efforts.
Of everything I have on my to-do list today, getting down the “rock dodge” drill for a cycling instructor course is probably the most difficult.  The result isn’t particularly challenging (dodging a rock), it’s the method by which you’re required to do it (a seemingly unnecessary bit of countersteering).  In any event, if that’s the toughest part of the day, it should be a good day, no?  Now on to bits and pieces collected over the week:
30 airports in 30 days. Â I remember wishing I could do this, when I saw the JetBlue pass on sale. Â It’s been at least 5 years since I last did a “mileage run” (something you do to push yourself just over the line for the next medallion status in a frequent flier program), and quick travel appeals less than it used to. Â But this? Â Sounded like a bit of fun.
Travelling at a slower speed is what’s gained my interest, lately, and this piece on a significant uptick in bicycle touring makes it sound like I’ve got some company. Â A proper cycling tour has been bouncing around in my head for a while, and I think Taiwan cemented my decision to make it happen soon. Â It’ll probably start with a long weekend’s out and back along the C&O, to sort things out. Â Then maybe a SF-LA (via the PCH) week trip? Â After that, who knows? Â I should probably stop reading this site, if I want to keep it reasonable . . .
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Here are a couple of interesting pieces on control in the marketplace. Â The first is about the differing approaches between Facebook and Google on the matter of who controls your data. Â You know you’re doing it wrong when you make Google look unthreatening by comparison. Â (I keep trying to kick the Facebook habit, but it’s tougher than you might imagine. Â Serious network effect going on, there.) Â The second is a post by a San Francisco restauranteur, and why he doesn’t use OpenTable. Â It’s really quite interesting, the amount of leverage that OpenTable (with its dominance of the market) has on metro area restaurants. Â I’ve been using OpenTable since they arrived in DC (2003?), but this (and, well, this) makes me hope that a competitor will be arriving shortly.
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I admit that, despite the rather large rhetorical role that it’s played in Virginia’s politics, I’ve never taken a close look at “clean coal” (or the veracity of a million claims about it). Â So while I realize that it’s just scratching the surface, I felt like I learned a fair bit from the always-informative James Fallows in this article:
To environmentalists, “clean coal†is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world’s energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible. China is now the leader in this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world. If we are serious about global warming, America needs to work with China to build a greener future on a foundation of coal. Otherwise, the clean-energy revolution will leave us behind, with grave costs for the world’s climate and our economy.
If anyone has rebuttals to this article that I should check out, do pass them along.
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Michael Turton, a Taiwan-based blogger, highlights what I think is a compelling political ad explaining why it’s important to care about politics.  Watch it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ywQ8G1XlI[/youtube]
Yes, it’s in the context of Taiwan, but it struck me as hitting universal truths.
If you think I can get a bit over the top on the TSA or ridiculously overreaching IP laws, just wait until I get rolling on US/Soviet/Russian nuclear proliferation. Â That we ever got to where we are today is testament to both the giant failures and achievements of humanity that we even *have* a today. Â And now we’re here, with the GOP preferring to spend its time saving us from Texas Representative/Village Idiot Louis Gohmert’s “terror babies” instead of, well, I’ll let Josh from TPM sketch it out:
Russia still has a massive strategic nuclear arsenal with pretty much the exclusive goal of being able to devastate the United States and kill pretty much all of us. For 15 years we had pretty robust right to inspect their arsenal many times a year, make sure they only had as many as they were allowed under our treaties and actually get up on the delivery missiles themselves and look at the payloads? Now we don’t. In fact, we haven’t since December 5th of last year. At first that wasn’t that big a deal. Not much can happen in a few weeks or few months. But now it’s been almost a year. So all that trust but verify stuff Ronald Reagan was so into? Well, now we can’t verify. And for as much as you’re worried about some Muslim guy blowing up a plane and killing a few hundred people, these are weapons designed to kill hundreds of millions of people. Do you feel more secure knowing we’re just taking everything on faith from the Russians? Or that our intelligence on their missile designs and practices is growing older by the day?
And do we hear the White House pointing this out? Â Anyone? Â Hello?
All Yelle, all the time, today.
A Cause des Garcons:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYhuwu614Y[/youtube]
Fatal Bazooka Feat Yelle: Parle à ma main (band geeks will hang out until the end):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4FamibkUH4[/youtube]
Je Veux Te Voir
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y99UqvgCmE8[/youtube]
Good thing most of you don’t speak French very well (and those that do, well, I’m not worried about you).
After the opening ceremony, we bounced off on our way to Lu Wey. Â But first, we stopped by one of Taitung’s markets:
Click here for a full screen slide show. Â Make sure that comments are enabled (look to the upper right for the checkbox).
It’s odd to write these post titles now. Â It’s like a time warp back to 2005. Â But with Bush attempting to rehabilitate himself, I don’t feel like I’ve much of a choice, here. Â So, to restate: George W. Bush is not just a war criminal, but the sort of sorry individual who was willing to perpetrate a fraud on the world so he could get what he wanted:
According to a memo written by a Blair aide documenting the meeting, Bush and Blair in that session each said they doubted any weapons of mass destruction would soon be discovered by the UN inspectors then searching for such arms in Iraq. Without any WMDs, it could be harder to win support for the war. But Bush had an idea—or two.
The memo—portions of which were published in the New York Times and in Philippe Sands’Lawless World —noted that Bush raised the notion of provoking a confrontation with Saddam Hussein. “The US was thinking,” the memo said, “of flying US reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach” of UN resolutions. A retaliatory attack would then be fully justified; the war could begin. In other words, Bush raised the prospect of staging a phony event to justify a military attack on Iraq.
[ . . . ]
Now, Bush, too, is keeping the cover-up alive. In his new book, Decision Points, Bush does write about this particular meeting. [ . . . ] But Bush says nothing about his proposal to provoke the war through fraud. (The memo, by the way, does not record Blair objecting to this potential subterfuge.)
One of the most maddening things about this is that Bush doesn’t have the capacity to understand what he’s wrought. Â (And I bet Tony Blair wishes he were more like Bush, on this point. Â Too bad. Â I hope he suffers for it until the end of his days.)
I hear and read, regularly, about fabulous indy films that are snatching up festival awards right and left.  But I’ll never see (legally or otherwise) most of them.  And while I’ll grant (assume?) that some portion of these films are made primarily to snatch up those festival awards, I’ve always thought that most of the filmmakers wanted people to actually, you know, see their work.  Which is incredibly frustrating, given that there is an existing conduit for these works (i.e., the Internet).  I understand that not everyone can afford to just throw $$$$ worth of work out on the web for free (nor do I really want them to), so other distribution efforts are always appreciated.  To that end,  I’m glad to see that there’s something of a step in the right direction here:
One of the more unconventional efforts to crack that marketplace is Film Festival in a Box. Ostensibly a game, it’s also a distribution strategy: packaged in rough brown cardboard, each game contains four short films, instructions on playing and topics for discussion. Players watch, deliberate, vote online in various categories (like best movie and performance) and make their favorite filmmakers eligible for cash prizes of up to $1,000.
“It’s a real game that plays with real people and real films, real films from all over the world,†said its founder, Scilla Andreen, a Seattle native who in 2004, with Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi, started the Web-based film distribution company IndieFlix. “You invite people over, have wine and cheese, watch four short films and deliberate as a group.†The group then posts its winners online, and the real filmmakers are notified. Both sides may, if they choose, interact.
“It’s a social-networking and audience-building tool for them,†Ms. Andreen said of the filmmakers. And for the players? “You’re supporting the arts, it’s recycled, it’s green, it’s made in America, and it’s $14.99.â€
In fact, I just realized right now that I’ll probably try this myself. Â It’s a fun evening for me and a few friends, but what does it get the filmmakers? Â Well:
Ms. Andreen is excited too, even if her product is not quite a game changer yet. The first box was released at the start of October, and rewards so far have been modest: about 2,000 Film Festivals in a Box have been sold, at retailers like drugstore.com and Uncommon Goods (where the comedies have done the best). Ms. Andreen has earned back $12,000 on what she said were $57,000 in production costs.
So there’s much to be done, and I don’t think that the magic of the internet always translates into magic in the bank. Â But it’s possible:
The Australian nutrition documentary “Food Matters†recently sold about 150,000 DVDs online, said Peter Broderick, a Los Angeles distribution strategist, even before it secured a distribution deal, or television broadcasts via the French media company Canal Plus. “He did it backwards,†Mr. Broderick said of the director of “Food Matters,†James Colquhoun. “Nobody knew who he was. But the interesting thing is, if he never made a distribution deal, he’d still be fine. The biggest difference today is how people think about their audience.â€
In any of these approaches, the two constants are making it available to anyone who wants it (i.e., via the internet) and providing some way for paying the filmmaker for her work. Â I hope to see more and more of this.