I try to stay away from entries entitled “ Dave Winer has gone barking mad,” but from time to time I suspect I just won’t be able to avoid it. Background: Dave got miffed (original) because Lawrence Lessig’s big speech included an exhortation to get off your butts and do something about the political arena. Dave, to be perfectly fair, is in fact fairly active in a scattershot kind of a way. He also deserves applause for his rejection of patents, although he couldn’t have actually patented everything he thinks he could. ...

Above the main door of the Cambridge City Hall is a stone bearing these words: God has given Commandments unto Men. From these Commandments Men have framed Laws by which to be governed. It is honorable and praiseworthy to faithfully serve the people by helping to administer these Laws. If the Laws are not enforced, the People are not well governed. The asserted motivation behind Roy Moore’s monument to the 10 Commandments (original) was acknowledgement of the law’s moral foundation: namely, the Commandments inscribed on his monument, which are certainly the Commandments referenced in the inscription above. ...

If I wind up buying the World of Darkness end-times books (and who am I kidding, of course I will), the WoD metaplot summaries will be of huge enormous use.

This David Eyre’s Pancakes recipe is ripped whole from the pages of Kids Are Natural Cooks, a cookbook I remember fondly from my childhood. Despite the fact that my name is clearly written in ink on the inside front cover, the cookbook itself is lodged firmly in the hands of my mother. Well, it’s Christmas time, so I shaln’t steal it back. But I will transcribe the recipe. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. ...

The Google/Amazon convergence continues, as Google adds book search (original) to its repertoire. It’s a step. It looks like only short excerpts of each book are stored, but Google implies full text search. There’s more interesting discussion of this, including the revenue model, over on Metafilter.

If the Gospels mashup didn’t quite satisfy your yen for Christian gaming, allow me to recommend the RPGnet thread dedicated to statting up Jesus (original). I must be in a mood this week or something.

This is the big week for Chronicle of Riddick news. Apple has a big fat Quicktime trailer, which I hear also ran in front of Return of the King, and the official site has a semi-nifty Flash animation. Despite the fact that it all looks like a Warhammer 40K knockoff, I’m still drooling. Pitcher Blacker (original) looks like the go-to site for news about the movies.

Nice little interview with David Twohy, regarding whom I am a staunch fanboy. It’s mostly about Below with a little news about the upcoming three-movie Chronicles of Riddick. (Vin Diesel was here.)

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the government may not hold Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant (original). Padilla is an American citizen. This will wind up going to the Supreme Court, I imagine.

Saith Dor: “Yeah, maybe Al Queda had a training camp in Iraq somewhere, at some point. There are militia training camps in Idaho. Does that mean that the US government sponsored the Oklahoma City bombing?”