It's where I talk to myself. Gaming, politics, and links I don't want to forget about.
From time to time, people ask me why I link to and read right-wing bloggers. The simple answer is “Because I want to see other viewpoints.” However, Tacitus just provided us with a clear example of the kind of integrity and honesty I find deeply valuable.
How could I not read a conservative thinker who’s that honest? That’s not an enemy, that’s a fellow human being who happens to disagree with me.
So this means that the RNC is going to be as critical of the Jessica Lynch TV movie as they were of the Reagan miniseries, right?
Fairly dull, but here’s Sony’s initial disclosures in White Wolf v. Sony. If you didn’t already know the basic argument Sony will be using, here it is:
To the extent any similarities exist between Plaintiffs’ works and Defendants’ Underworld movie, any such similarities concern material that is not original, not protectable expression, lies within the public domain, and/or constitutes unprotectable ideas or scenes a faire.
(I define scenes a faire here — “ideas that are inherent to the conventional telling of a given sort of story.”)
I should look up the cases Sony cites as precedent, but I’m lazy.
Let’s see. It looks like Sony will be using one Patricia Altner in some capacity during the trial, although apparently not as an expert witness. Maybe she was a consultant on the script? She wrote Vampire Readings: An Annotated Bibliography, which is an annotated bibliography of vampire material.
Oh, and I don’t mind posting this PDF because Sony politely obscured the home addresses of their people by saying “contact them through their lawyers.”
Wow, those are certainly some attractive jobless numbers there. In fact, they’re so good I stole the graphic so I could stick it up here.
Damn, but that’s good. So good, I decided to reformat it a bit so I could admire it again.
Oh. And I guess employment dropped by 41,000 anyhow. So, uh… what’s unemployment look like, anyhow?
As they say, all this really means is that the rate of increase has decreased.
Edit: on rereading, I’m not sure if I was sufficiently sarcastic in my cries of mock delight, above. Shorter Popone: “The Reuters graphic was manipulated to make the drop in claims look like a big deal, but it wasn’t. Also, unemployment is still rising.”
Bush’s remarks on Middle East Democracy are quite fortuitous, since I wanted to talk some more about that war of civilizations thing. Bush is about to say, or said, that the changes we want to see in the Middle East are not “synonymous with Westernization.”
But that’s really the heart of the matter. The thing we call Western culture (and if ever there was a loose definition, there it is) is immensely viral. It spreads. It is intensely aggressive. Give us a new market, and we’ll shoulder our way into it if it all possible. McDonalds on every corner, etc., etc.
Is our civilization at war with Islam? In the sense that it’s doing its damnedest to spread into the Middle East, you bet. In the sense that we’re directing military activities which include deliberate cultural propaganda, not at all. However, it is wise to remain aware that there’s something pretty threatening about Western culture from the outside.
But this aggressiveness is not characterized as war except by extremists on that side of the fence, in the same way that nobody believes we’re at war with drugs except rhetoricians. (Parenthetically, do you think Stephen King worries about the War on Terror breaking down his door? Probably not.) It’s a conflict, but it’s not a war.
It’s also not one I feel terribly bad about. Free speech is one of my most cherished values. It’s not my job, or anyone’s job, to make people stop watching crap Hollywood movies. If a culture wants to compete, it should take a page from India and Bollywood. If you don’t like what people are reading, write more relevant books.
There’s a pretty fierce argument lurking somewhere around here about the aforementioned McDonalds and Wal*Mart. This is, of course, the monopoly problem. I am going to avoid it on the grounds that “Western culture” was spreading before either behemoth strode the global stage; I am also going to cite the trend of various nations to eschew Microsoft in their governmental software purchases. It is not as easy as it should be to compete with the big American countries… but it’s not impossible, either.
Ordinarily, I’d be pretty dubious about this report, but one of the sources is Richard Perle. If it’s true, Iraq was trying pretty hard to negotiate a peace — including allowing thousands of US scientists into the country to look for WMDs and UN-sponsored free elections.
One could argue that Saddam would have gone back on his deal. But it would have been a lot easier getting international support for an invasion at that point.
Gwen tipped me to the story. Josh Marshall has more wary commentary. If Marshall is right, mind you, it says interesting things about Perle’s willingness to screw the Pentagon and CIA for political gain.
So, about Matrix: Revolutions…
It was worth ten bucks for me to watch the Wachowskis do cool visual sequences, and I don’t just mean the SFX. They do astounding visual stuff better than just about anyone. Check out Bound sometime, which is an utterly beautifully filmed movie with no special effects at all. Revolutions does not disappoint there.
Plot? Yeah, there’s plot. It’s less unwieldly than Reloaded, and not as complex as one might suspect or expect. But don’t see it for the screenplay.
There wasn’t ever going to be more than one Matrix experience. How could there be? Revolutions is good, even if it isn’t shockingly new.
I dropped by Tom Kratman’s web board the other day to find out what my favorite Baen author had been up to lately, and found this excerpt from an upcoming novel:
Thomas felt unwelcome tears. He forced them back only with difficulty. So gallant, so brave they were, those boys over there fighting and dying against such odds, and with so little hope.
Gribeauvil, seeing the boy’s emotions written upon his twisted face, said, “Yes, son; give them their due. They are a great people, a magnificent people. And we are damned lucky to have them, now.”
Thomas agreed. And more; he thought of himself, alone, trying to save his mother and little brother from the alien menace. He wished to be a man, was becoming one, he knew. But alone he could never have made the slightest difference for his family’s survival. That took an army, an army of brave men and boys, willing to give their all for the cause of their people.
Perhaps for the first time, Thomas began to feel a deep pride, not so much in himself, but in the men he served with, in the army they served, and even in the black-clad, lightning bolt-signified, corps that was a part of that army.
Thomas was learning.
“Those boys” would be SS soldiers. The black-clad lightning bolt-signified corps is the SS. And don’t forget the depersonalization — Thomas is nothing by himself. He can only matter as part of an army. In this case, he only matters because he’s part of the SS.
Someone asked Kratman why he chose the SS. He gave three reasons:
a) Good troops taking, in many cases, a bum rap. b) a way to further annoy the left, literarily. c) Moreover, though you doubtless have not been following the snippets, in the context of John Ringo’s Posverse ALL mankind are going to become something very like them…the few who survive anyway.
Yeah. The SS weren’t so bad, it’s fun using shock tactics to piss people off, and everyone’s going to wind up like the SS in that universe anyhow.
Jack Gulick is the man when it comes to stats and gaming. He also plays a lot of Amber; go figure. Anyhow, he followed up my earlier post about dice here and I wanted to make sure nobody who was interested missed it.
I’ve mentioned before that the key to Dean’s success is redirecting the blog energy out into the real world. Here’s an example. The Internet is just a tool for communication. Using it as such works. No mystic special nature, no slogans needed, no marketing fluff. It’s just a way for people to talk more easily.
I get value out of asking my friends about movies they’ve seen and reading newspaper reviews; thus, I get value out of using movie review aggregators. Presidential candidates get value out of recruiting get out the vote workers; thus, they get value out of doing the same damned thing online.
It’s just that communication which previously had to be local can now be global.