] The documentary by Pennsylvania-based Carlton Sherwood, a
] former journalist and Vietnam veteran, chronicles Kerry's
] 1971 testimony before Congress and links him to activist
] and actress Jane Fonda. It includes interviews with
] Vietnam prisoners of war and their wives who claim that
] Kerry's testimony -- filled with "lurid fantasies of
] butchery in Vietnam" on the part of U.S. troops --
] demeaned them and led their captors to hold them longer.

[ Sinclair Media Group has ordered it's affiliates to carry this program, which appears to be, essentially, a rehash of the Swift Boat allegations, presented as a documentary, without pretense of objectivity.

Sinclair, you might recall, is the operator who was on the recieving end of John McCain's wrath a few months ago, who refused to broadcast Ted Koppel's reading of the names of our soldiers killed in Iraq and whose executives are substantial contributors to BC'04.

The left side of the netroots community has taken to complaining directly to Sinclair's advertisers, and the Democratic party is challenging the broadcast as a violation of FEC law. The latter seems a somewhat tenuous argument, but the program does appear to be unfiltered bias, presented as news, and the response on a local level appears to be the most appropriate.

It's not so dissimilar from, say, ABC News deciding to air Farenheit 9/11 during primetime, and calling it a newscast. In other words, completely inappropriate. -k]

Democrats Seek Probe of Anti-Kerry Broadcast (washingtonpost.com)

Chrisopher Reeves died yesterday

Superman has fallen

] Google SMS (Short Message Service) enables you to easily
] get precise answers to specialized queries from your
] mobile phone or device. Send your query as a text message
] and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions,
] product prices and more. Just text. No links. No web
] pages. Simply the answers you're looking to find.

This works great. I'm gunna end up paying for cheaper SMS service with this.

Google SMS

] "The technologies don't infringe, people do," Greenberg
] said.

Yeah!

Wired News: Senate Shelves Induce Review

] Roughly ten years ago I was involved in a conversation
] with some patent attorneys over the question of whether
] someone could patent a smell. The conclusion they reached
] was yes, as long as there was some system in place for
] defining smells.
]
]
] Enter the October 4, 2004 announcement that two Americans
] were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering
] how people can recognize and remember an estimated 10,000
] smells, ranging from smelly garbage to expensive perfume.
]
] ...
]
] Patenting smells in the past was limited to describing
] the chemical composition of the substance. Receptor
] patterning opens the door for a variety of new patenting
] possibilities, as well as a world filled with
] infringement pitfalls.

[ Not sure how i feel about this... -k]

The DaVinci Institute - Taste & Smell Patents

] Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a
] report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, who
] found no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass
] destruction after 1991, justifies rather than undermines
] President Bush's decision to go to war.

[ Seriously? It's like I'm in some parallel dimension. -k]

ABCNEWS.com : Cheney: Weapons Report Justifies Iraq War

] Some detected animus toward Edwards in Ifill's
] interrogations but for me the overwhelming impression,
] which I've gathered over the years from watching her on
] PBS's Wash Week in Review, is that this is a person with
] a case of the cutes. There's a preening coyness to her,
] as if she's smiling at herself rather than at the camera
] and expecting a cookie.

[ I kinda felt that way too. Some seriously silly moments she cooked up. I'm glad Edwards brought it up when he said "I can use his name again now?" That's was pure silliness. -k]

Gwen Awful

] WASHINGTON - Sen. John Edwards and Vice President Cheney clashed
] repeatedly in their debate last night, making impressive-sounding
] but misleading statements on issues including the war in Iraq,
] tax cuts and each other's records, often omitting key facts along
] the way.

Here are my own thoughts, after watching the debate live.

...

Also, there was one time that Cheney said something that was incorrect, which was when he said he'd never met Edwards before.

[ Well, actually, there were a number of times Cheney said things that were either misleading or patently false. Edwards too. Wether ones misleadings were worse than the others is a matter each person must decide for themselves, but they're there. You're correct that Cheney's much better able to make his lies sound like well reasoned truth, however. He's a professional, and he's been around a while... he doesn't get worked up and he's got a solid command of the "facts" he wants to put forth.

Annenberg's FactCheck.org Points them out http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=272

I think Edwards' errors are both less frequent and less egregious than Cheney's. -k]

The VP Debate

] Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top
] of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the
] millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the
] bitstream.

[ The editor of Wired takes a stab at redefining the business model that entertainment companies should be looking at.

There are some compelling statistics in the article, and a lot of arguments similar to those made by myself and others around here in the past few years. Leveraging the power of collaborative filtering and network effects inherently, flexible pricing based on popularity metrics, modified cost structures and the removal of locality as a parameter for the customer base.

If his numbers are accurate, anywhere between 20 and 50% of existing potential markets may be untapped because there's simply no way to get people to the product efficiently in the physical space. That's an awful lot of money and more importantly, an awful lot of diverse cultural media that could be available to the greater audience. -k]

Wired 12.10: The Long Tail

Vile wrote:
[ Given that your stated goal is to disrupt us as much as possible, I typically ignore everything you say, even when it has merit, which it frequently does, in between the ad hominems and bile. But this reply exceeds even my tolerance for insult and faulty logic.

You claim that I'm so rabid in my hatred for bush that I would respond with unchecked vitriol and fury were the situation reversed. That I am, in fact, unable to think rationally about the president. You clearly believe this of me with the very same unreasoned passion you ascribe to me, so I imagine argument isn't likely to have an effect. Still, I do defend that I would treat this rule as dumb regardless of the target. You may, happily, continue to think otherwise since it can't be *proven* either way.

I'm neither fanatical nor obsessive about John Kerry. I don't particularly like the guy, but I think he'll do a substantially better job than Bush, period. I have never pretended to be anything but accepting of Kerry as the nominee and support him precicely insofar as he is not Bush. I'd love to have better options than "not Bush", but I've only got one, and Kerry's it, so I favor him.

Really, you don't get insipid until the second section where you imply that my argument is without merit, and that my right to exist is questionable. As if that silly threat weren't enough, you claim you'll leave it at that, and then don't, dribbling on and completely misunderstanding the simple concept of trust. In fact, what I said was, I don't think we need written rules to proscribe the President and candidate from "cheating." These men should be honest enough not to cheat without a proctor leaning over them with a copy of the rulebook. So, in fact, my argument is precicely that dishonest men have no business being on the podium. It is, actually in *no* sense, the converse argument you claim it to be.

Presumably the remainder of the slander you spew is supposed to convince someone of something, or perhaps you're simply fullfilling your promise to be the local troll. If I thought you knew even half enough about me to honestly mean any one of those asisne things, I might take them seriously, but as it is, I don't mind when people marginalize themselves further with half sentient rants. I'm glad you've managed to slough off all the blame for society's ills on "middle-class, apathetic, cynical, pseudo-intellectuals" and I can only hope it fills you with all the joy and hope you deserve as a great paragon of virtue. -k]

RE: DRUDGE REPORT 2004: Did Kerry Cheat?