Lotta discussion of incest lately, in the context of Senator Santorum’s unwise remarks (original). Two observations. First off, there is a potential qualitative difference between incest and homosexuality, and it has to do with imbalanced power relationships. The chances that an incestuous relationship embodies an unhealthy dominant/submissive relationship of some kind seems to me to be fairly high. Even if we’re not talking parent/child, the chance of an unhealthy sibling relationship is still sizable. The inherent risk of a psychologically unhealthy incestuous relationship merits separate legal treatment. ...

I’ve seen a couple of mainstream movies on the Imax screen. It’s fun; it’s not superhigh quality but it’s fun. I haven’t seen any Hollywood flicks remastered for the format, but I hear they’re pretty cool too. I will remedy this failure on my part this year. I have a weakness for movies — good ones, bad ones, I just really like ‘em. Well, not Martin Lawrence movies, but otherwise. When you tell me I can see a high quality Matrix sequel on Imax without waiting months and months? My inner geek comes out. ...

Short-take Wednesday, that’s what today is. Anyhow, I am enough of a geek to be deeply amused by this meditation on redundant stateful load balancing.

How’s the world going to end? Find out here. Or, at least, read a cross-section of theories. Amusing stuff.

Well! We’re holding children under sixteen at Gitmo. That kind of stings. These kids, like other prisoners at Gitmo, are being held without benefit of either US law or the Geneva Convention. Let’s assume that the case for the legality of this has been made. I still can’t help but wonder why the US government is willing to put aside those two bodies of law. The real test of morality is not what you do when you have no choice — it’s what you do when you do have a choice. Apparently, when we have a choice, we sometimes decide not to grant civil rights. Even to kids.

PETA offered the town of Hamburg, New York a cool $15,000 to change its name. To Veggieburg. Well, no; on rereading the article they actually offered the town $15,000 worth of non-meat patties. For the schools. “Ham” is old Saxon for “banks,” you know. Or anyhow, you know now. Hamburgers are named after the town. Clearly PETA should be campaigning to change the name of the meat product, as naming the vile meat after a town is a slur on the noble history of the place. Town yes! Meat no!

There’s a fair chunk of interesting stuff happening at the 2003 Emerging Technology Conference, and since O’Reilly is O’Reilly, there’s a sort of a weblogesque thing going on. Wish I was there… oh, hey, there’s Google using the conference for marketing. That’s not a dig at Google. I’m just constantly impressed at how smart those guys are. Man, and the Social Software track looks awesome.

Here and there, I’ve seen some snide commentary about Madonna and copyright, thanks to this article (original). Madonna’s been putting out decoy MP3s on the filesharing systems lately. Wendy Seltzer argues that since trademarks are intended to “protect consumers by defending a source’s association with quality goods and services,” Madonna may be diluting her own trademark by associating “Madonna” with the decoy files. Um, yeah. So if the next Matrix flick really sucks, Joel Silver will lose the trademark on “Matrix” as it applies to movies? Does Garth Brooks know that putting out crap albums will make it impossible for him to keep his name trademarked? ...

War’s not over (you wouldn’t want to visit Mosul without an escort just now) but I think it’s about past time to stop scouring the Internet for news. Nothing’s gonna happen suddenly at this point, and if something does happen suddenly it’ll be big and someone will walk down the hall and stick their head into my office to tell me so. So: the war blogroll goes back to whence it came, and some of the blogs wind up on my other blogrolls, and I continue on my pensive way.

“I have never, that I can recall, heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting,” he said. “The likelihood of it seems to me to be so low that it does not surprise me that it’s never been discussed in my presence to my knowledge.” “He” is Donald Rumsfeld. Dude. Not even considered? Not even thought about it? Everyone else in the world has mentioned it, and you didn’t even talk about how to answer the question when it came up? I mean, senior military officials have thought about it. ...