The real problem is that they’re attacking the wrong place in the chain. If the FCC and lawmakers are willing to disrupt business models and, quite possibly, the first amendment, they should attack the problem at the source. Instead of forcing cable providers to offer consumers stations a la carte, lawmakers should force media companies to offer channels a la carte to the “cable” companies. It’s a small change in the plan with the potential for very big things.

interesting.

The Clicker: Cable channels a la carte - Engadget - www.engadget.com

For the next seven years Hager sodomized Davis without her consent while she slept roughly once a month until their divorce in 2002, she claims. "My sense is that he saw [my narcolepsy] as an opportunity,"

Hager is one of the FDA guys who opposed Plan B and well known on the Christian right. Based on this, he probably needs to be fed depo-prevara and sent to the big house where he can find out just how much fun taking it up the back door without consent is.

[ Maybe I'm not as opposed to capital punishment as I thought... -k]

Dr. Hager's Family Values

Walgreen Co. said it has put four Illinois pharmacists in the St. Louis area on unpaid leave for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception in violation of a state rule.

The four cited religious or moral objections to filling prescriptions for the morning-after pill and "have said they would like to maintain their right to refuse to dispense, and in Illinois that is not an option," Walgreen spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said.

Good for Walgreen's and good for Illinois. If you have a "religious or moral" reason for not doing your job, that means you're doing the wrong job.

[ Precisely. Those pharmacists have every right to refuse to dispense contraceptives. If, in high school, I had been a strict Straightedge, and, on the basis of my morality, refused to sell people alcohol or cigarettes in my job as a grocery store cashier, that would have been my right too. And I'd have gotten fired for it. And that would have been correct. Every employee has the *right* to refuse to do their job for any reason whatsoever, but they certainly don't have the right to keep their job after doing so. -k]

Ill. Pharmacists Withhold Emergency Pill - Yahoo! News

More than half (57 percent) of Australians believe that if an Australian citizen is convicted of trafficking drugs in a country where the death penalty applies, it should be carried out.

'It's their country, and if they choose to make those rules we should be prepared to travel under those rules," one respondent said.

Fair enough. All that means is that I will never travel to those countries.

I've never taken drugs once in my life, but I can't abide a place where the line between life and death is so narrowly drawn. Forget it.

CNN.com - Asia's 'grim view on drug crime' - Dec 1, 2005

The term ambient findability describes a world at the crossroads of ubiquitous computing and the internet, in which we can find anyone or anything from anywhere at any time. It's not necessarily a goal, and we'll never achieve perfect findability, but we're surely headed in the right direction.

Fascinating, disturbing and highly relevant article.

O'Reilly Network: UFOs (Ubiquitous Findable Objects)

We are so shameless now, so openly hostile to one another, that we don't even pretend otherwise. Here is how the senate power structure works: the resolution sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon, honoring that golfer from New Zealand passed unanimously - but commending one of the seminal albums and musicians of the past 30 years gets nixed right away? Come on.

What happened to embracing diversity of opinion in this country? What happened to the idea that a healthy opposition is good for us, that it helps clarify our own views, that only when one idea is shown better than another does it truly strengthen? And when did we stop listening to the other side, if for no other reason than it's polite, humane and hey, it helps us hone our own viewpoint?

I don't love it when musicians or actors (or novelists, for that matter) get on their soapbox. I know my friend Chris doesn't agree with everything the Boss says. Neither do I. But we listen. Part of the paradox here is that many of Mr. Springsteen's characters - the factory worker, the soldier, the working stiff seeking release, the Friday-night racer looking for escape - would vote Republican.

Rock and a Hard Place

"People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."

Deputy Chief Hernandez, you just used the same terminology to describe your new initiative as was used by our government in it's overwhelmingly violent invasion of Iraq. And you say you wish for me not to feel threatened? Apologies for being blunt, but you're fucking dreaming. Constant or near-constant police presence, coupled with random ID checks DOES NOT make me feel comfortable and, in fact, DOES make me feel like my rights are being violated. Such activities are prelude to a police state, in which all activities are scrutinized and no sign is too small to warrant investigation. We've been moving toward this for the past, oh, 6-ish years, and this is a major strike against the society I always thought of as America. It's a travesty, plain and simple.

Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative appears aimed at ensuring that people's rights are not violated.

"What we're dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more consistent with the Constitution," Simon said. "We'll have to see how it is implemented."

Mr. Simon, you ought to be run out of the ACLU on a rail. As far as I can tell you're saying that you'd rather have the cops publicly scanning us and checking our papers than doing so secretly. Well, I can't disagree, but then, I guess I'd rather be punched in the face than cracked in the back of the head too. 'Course, I'd really rather that not one of those things happen. This statement makes me want to cancel my membership. I'm not talking about simply not renewing... this statement makes me want to call the ACLU and tell them I want a fucking refund. I absolutely cannot see a way to implement random ID checks that aren't an affront to the freedoms I *thought* this nation stood for.

Shameful.

[-k]

BREITBART.COM - Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror

Dear Sieveking

(Why do you ‘Dr’ me? Had we not dropped the honorifics?) As things worked out, I wasn’t free to hear a single instalment of our serial [The Magician’s Nephew] except the first. What I did hear, I approved. I shd. be glad for the series to be given abroad. But I am absolutely opposed – adamant isn’t in it! – to a TV version. Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare. At least, with photography. Cartoons (if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!) wld. be another matter. A human, pantomime, Aslan wld. be to me blasphemy.

All the best,
yours
C. S. Lewis

[ from boingboing, and, to some, indication that lewis might not approve of the forthcoming movie.

I, personally, think the text does nothing of the sort. From the perspective of 1959, and indeed all the way up to the millenium, he's right. There was simply no way to do anthropomorphic animals well until very recently. It's by no means perfect, but there can hardly be any question that the computer generated animals of the current movie are not appreciably inferior to those you'd get from animation. A high quality computer generated Aslan is hardly a human pantomime. Wether the film is *good* is another story, but i don't see that Lewis would oppose it in principle. -k]

nthposition online magazine: Blasphemy in Narnia

Moreover, the corporate suits might also consider lowering CD prices

Well, they've been doing that for a couple of years, though, perhaps the author means the prices should be still lower. I seldom see CDs in the range of 17-19 dollars, though that was the standard 3 years ago. 14-16 is far more common anymore, which still isn't as good as the $8 i pay for a used cd returned within a few weeks or months by some fickle buyer. The labels might be able to cut a bit more, but i think the author's next suggestion is far better. That is :

...and while they're at it, [reduce] licensing fees for the subscription services, as well.

Of course, the price the labels may demand for such lowered fees, if they're even smart enough to see the need, may be differential pricing. In my mind the jury is still out on this issue... i see both sides of it and can't quite come to a conclusion. Still, the labels want it, and it's a concession that may be required of the vendors before too long.

The author's statement that the technology is ready to do without the labels is too simple, since he ignores the fact that technology has greatly revolutionized the distribution end, but isn't quite there on the creation and transaction handling aspects. I don't think those problems are far from solutions either, so his general theory, that the majors are in deep shit, is quite true, i think. In fact, we've been saying so for years. Truly, they need to get on board with the new business models emerging, or they *will* die. I don't consider that a negative outcome because i have much love for the labels, but because, in the short and medium term, an abrupt transition in that form will be bad for music. The fallout of those giant corporations crashing will simply demolish much that is good.

[ -k ]

Music Biz Blues

Decius wrote:

On Dec. 12, the Federal District Court in Los Angeles will hear a lawsuit filed by a consortium of Christian high schools against the University of California system for refusing to credit some of their courses when their students apply for admission.

In order to refuse these students the State must establish that they do not gain the basic knowledge needed in order to comprehend college level material from these classes.

Is that, in fact, the criteria, or are you simply stating that it ought to be? I don't disagree, but I'm curious.

I think this case is far more interesting than the ID movement which, though well supported and high profile, is also, i find, transparent and simpleminded (which is not the same as saying it's not a threat of course). This, however, raises some interesting questions.

At the risk of falling into the trap of basing an argument on too little information, I've some comments.

The example you found of the UC rejecting the course on the basis of the text being an anthology vs. a full novel sounds like a fairly arbitrary one. Certainly it's the school's right to determine that anthologies don't suffice, and base acceptance on that determination, but it doesn't speak to the subtleties of this issue.

The "troubling" example you found is far more fascinating because it does potentially insinuate that a book which teaches science from the standpoint of Christian beliefs cannot adequately teach science. That dangerously close to saying that Christianity and Science are incompatible (which is, of course, hogwash) though not precisely the same. It depends a great deal on how the material is presented, in my opinion. If the scientific method is left intact and the physical principles presented fully, including the mathematical proofs behind them, then that's fine. If for even one moment, the books resorts to a "because God ordained it so" as a *reason* some physical principle exists, without indicating either that there's higher level math required to understand it or that presently we don't understand it, then it is doing the students a disservice.

The question, as you say, comes down to whether it's the religious *perspective* that UC is rejecting or if, in fact, these courses fail to adhere to reasonable educational standards. In fact, it calls into question the entire concept of what standards *are* reasonable, which is the greater prize in this battle, I think. For me, I think, that comes down to two things. The first is if the Christian perspective is the *only* one taught. It's perfectly fine to discuss the problems that Twain or Dickinson had with God or with Religion. I'll even say it's good insofar as that's much a part of who they were. However, if in so doing, the texts or instructors leave out the influence these authors had or fail to analyze the work in historical context and so on, then stu... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: Here's the Problem With Emily Dickinson - New York Times