] "Fahrenheit 9/11" creator defends his film to NBC's Katie
] Couric, taking on his critics and the news media. Watch
] the interview

And now, for the opposing view straight from the Director's mouth. Watch Katie Couric's interview from Today. (via atrios)

MSN Entertainment - Movies: Fahrenheit 9/11

] If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic
] would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical
] Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and
] annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to,
] Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait
] would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would
] still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime
] family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North
] Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective
] awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To
] the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the
] great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten
] culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

Scathing review of Fahrenheit 9/11, admittedly a movie I will be seeing this weekend. For those of us *liberals* who want to challenge our more biased thoughts before we see the movie, here is a good review to do so.

Unfairenheit 9/11 - The lies of Michael Moore. By Christopher Hitchens

] Signal Orange represents the dead with the living %u2014
] wearing T-shirts in their names. There is one shirt for
] each soldier who died. The front states how he or she
] died, the back reads, %u201C(Rank) (First) (Last)
] can%u2019t vote anymore.%u201D
]
] The signal orange color of the shirt was chosen for the
] same reason it is used where caution is required %u2014
] it%u2019s the most visible color in person, on camera,
] and on video. The shirts are to be worn in places where
] the media is focused, whether that focus is momentary or
] constant. Examples might include the audience outside a
] morning talk show, or a parade, or a sporting event, and
] it certainly includes the Republican National Convention
] in NYC come September.
]
] Signal Orange doesn%u2019t say that these soldiers or
] their families condemn or support the war, and it
] doesn%u2019t speak for them. Whether they opposed or
] supported the war, they were fighting for our right to
] decide democratically whether a war is just or not.
] They%u2019ve been buried twice%u2014once in the ground,
] and once in the media. If we can make them visible in the
] media through Signal Orange, we can demonstrate that they
] had voices that have been lost.

This is some cool stuff. Good use of your voice.

SIGNAL ORANGE

] n Arabic TV news network said Friday that American
] hostage Paul Johnson Jr. has been beheaded by his Saudi
] captors.

Totally preposterous. I suppose we now know the method. It doesn't matter what happened with Nick Berg, this is now the method of choice. Dear god help us. I just don't understand the thought-- how can you not have good at the very base of your being?

CNN.com - Report: U.S. hostage beheaded - Jun 18, 2004

Class Day:Comedian Will Ferrell
Comedian Will Ferrell kicked off this year’s Class Day, a festive celebration honoring the senior class. Dispensing wisdom learned at “the school of hard knocks,” the former Saturday Night Live cast member delivered congratulatory wishes to Harvard’s Class of 2003.

Still a classic video.

Harvard@Home: Harvard University 352nd Commencement & Graduation Ceremonies

] Greetings fellow pirates! Arrrrr! I'm here today to talk
] to you about copyright, technology and DRM, I work for
] the Electronic Frontier Foundation on copyright stuff
] (mostly), and I live in London. I'm not a lawyer -- I'm a
] kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally
] they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and
] send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble.
] I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing
] completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk
] about DRM. I lead a double life: I'm also a science
] fiction writer. That means I've got a dog in this fight,
] because I've been dreaming of making my living from
] writing since I was 12 years old. Admittedly, my IP-based
] biz isn't as big as yours, but I guarantee you that it's
] every bit as important to me as yours is to you. Here's
] what I'm here to convince you of: 1. That DRM systems
] don't work 2. That DRM systems are bad for society 3.
] That DRM systems are bad for business 4. That DRM systems
] are bad for artists 5. That DRM is a bad business-move
] for MSFT It's a big brief, this talk. Microsoft has sunk
] a lot of capital into DRM systems, and spent a lot of
] time sending folks like Martha and Brian and Peter around
] to various smoke-filled rooms to make sure that Microsoft
] DRM finds a hospitable home in the future world.
] Companies like Microsoft steer like old Buicks, and this
] issue has a lot of forward momentum that will be hard to
] soak up without driving the engine block back into the
] driver's compartment. At best I think that Microsoft
] might convert some of that momentum on DRM into angular
] momentum, and in so doing, save all our asses.

This is a great talk Cory Doctorow gave at MSFT recently regarding all of the arguments we have made over the years regarding DRM. (via boingboing)

Why Microsoft should get out of DRM

] System Requirements
] You need a computer. It needs to be connected to the
] internet. You need to running a modern browser. By modern
] we mean any of the current generation of
] standard-compliant and JavaScript-capable browsers like
] Mozilla, Firefox, Camino, Safari, Opera and Netscape 6 or
] 7. At a push it'll even work with MS Internet Explorer 6
] or higher.
]
] Netscape 4, on the other hand, is not supported on
] principle. Netscape 4 is an evil application and must
] die.

I thought this was funny. More importantly, a new kind of bookmark manager which makes a lot more sense. Check it out.

Hyperlinkomatic : Introduction

] The system, of course, would allow speed checking sensors
] and other mechanisms to identify which cars were
] traveling at what speeds -- up to 200mph from up to 300
] feet away.

@#*&^@#

UK Considers RFID License Plates

Ryan: It really is a fantastic book. Travels through time explaining all of nature from the birth of the universe through modern times, through the perspective of the development of each science.

I'm currently reading another Bryson book, Made in America, which discusses the development of American English through the history of the United States. Written in a similar fashion as Short History, it is the followup to The Mother's Tongue, which discussed the development of British English. Neat stuff.

k wrote:
] ] A book by travel writer Bill Bryson, which explains the
] ] origins of everything scooped the Aventis Science Book
] ] Prize on Monday night. A Short History of Nearly
] ] Everything, was awarded the prize by Lord Robert May,
] ] President of the Royal Society and Dirk Oldenburg, chair
] ] of the Aventis Foundation, at London's Royal Society.
]
] [ I haven't had the chance to read this yet, but I know Ryan
] really liked it... i may well pick it up one of these days.
] It's quite something by all accounts... -k]

RE: A Short History of Nearly Everything wins Aventis Prize

] CNNfn also has obtained some of Enron's accounting
] records, some of which refer to previously unreported
] market manipulation techniques called "sidewinder,"
] "Russian roulette," "ping pong" and "donkey punch."

Ha!

New Enron tapes deal with alleged market manipulation - Jun. 14, 2004