aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Pork!
The highway bill of 1982 had 10 “earmarked” projects-the code word for pork. The 2005 one has 6,371.
Have you heard? She was a passenger! She rode in one.
Drum answers Malkin et al. With 17 trackbacks so far they think they’ve got us. Another busses flap:
People who drive SUVs sure are touchy, aren’t they? You’d almost think they felt guilty about something. I wonder what their objection is to a private organization spending privately raised money to promote behavior that will lessen our dependence on Saudi oil? Seems downright conservative to me.
Headline adapted from The Political Teen.
Miserable failure
I heard about this just the other day; Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products, explains on Google Blog:
If you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase [miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s official biographical page for President Bush. We’ve received some complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a political bias on our part. I’d like to explain how these results come up in order to allay these concerns.
Google’s search results are generated by computer programs that rank web pages in large part by examining the number and relative popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to President Bush’s website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for those phrases. We don’t condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we’re also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don’t affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission.
I’m surprised they’re only commenting now. The BBC had a story on it in 2003.
The googlebombing I once knew is gone. When you typed ”Waepons of Mass Destuction” and clicked “I’m feeling lucky” it brought up a parody 404 “File Not Found” message.
UPDATE: Linked to OTB’s Easy Sunday Drive.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Giving as good as they get, Kerfuffles has this Google surprise.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Roy’s rock
NOTE: This post is the first of three. For more see also Roy & Rove and Moore’s Law.
I’ve been especially tuned in to Judge Roy Moore and his Ten Commandment monument since Nightline did a fascinating program about it (the monument, not the judge) last year.
For those who might not know, the monument’s been on tour, hauled around by a guy from American Veterans in Domestic Defense (!) on the back of a flatbed truck. The truck pulls into town, they push a staircase up to the back of it, and folks clamber up top to marvel at the monument.
Or at least they did. The website for the tour, standingforgod.org, sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, but has no reported tour activity since spring. I’ve been visiting regularly to see if the monument might be coming to my town.
The townsfolk sure would like it if it did. Around here, Ten Commandment signs are the lawn ornament of choice; there’s no other issue that has such resonance for local people.
So I read with interest Joshua Green’s Atlantic Monthly feature story, Roy and His Rock. Green rode with the monument ("like riding in the Rolling Stones’ tour bus") through Georgia and Alabama:
When the Rock attends a convention, it is the first thing to arrive and the last thing to leave. The process of moving it is orchestrated by Chris Scoggins, the stocky, bespectacled, and deeply sunburned driver of the International flatbed, who, with his assistant Mike Hill, works for Clark Memorials Incorporated, which carved the monument and now sees to its safe passage.
[...]
Typically, an image of the Rock is beamed onto a giant screen before Moore takes the stage. Most of his speeches, and even his idle conversations, obsessively return to it. He has even copyrighted the monument. Today the Rock plays a role weirdly analogous to that of a retired Kentucky Derby winner gone to stud: with Moore’s blessing, it is being cloned for a Baptist group in Atlanta.
Anyone who’s ever presented at a conference or a workshop recognizes the importance of props. Judge Moore, who deeded the monument to the state of Alabama but included a clause that returned ownership to him in the event of its removal from the courthouse, sure got himself one great prop…
Read the rest of "Roy’s rock" in the extended entry.
Unlikely copyfighters
It was good to see John Stossel take up the copyfight last night on 20/20. Well kind of:
C’mon ! All over the Internet are photos of things like furniture made out of beer cans, gladiator costumes made of Coors labels, and toy planes made of Pepsi cans. Sports Illustrated did a spread with models in bikinis made from Mexican beer bottle caps. Designer Lizzy Gardiner made an evening gown out of American Express Gold Cards and wore it to the Oscars.
He’s talking about Jose Avilla, who made furniture from FedEx boxes then set up a website to document it. FedEx, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, demanded it be taken down. I thought I had posted on Avilla before, when Wired News ran a story about him. Maybe I just commented somewhere else.
Wal-Mart’s another copyfighter I should have noted:
Seriously. In a federal hearing that could help determine the future availability of art and literature to the public, a Wal-Mart rep named Joe Lisuzzo called on Congress to rewrite copyright law so that more creative works can enter the public domain.
Specifically, Lisuzzo and Wal-Mart are pushing the government to change the way it deals with “orphan works,” which are described by the US Copyright Office as “copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or even impossible to locate.” Orphan works can be literally anything from an old film clip to a line of computer code to a haiku scribbled on the back of a napkin. As the law stands, anyone who wants to reproduce an orphan work or tweak it into some novel creation (àla sound collagists Negativland) has to hunt down the copyright holder for permission or risk getting sued… Talk about strange bedfellows: In this particular battle Wal-Mart is on the same side as librarians, intellectuals, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an activist group that spends much of its time wrangling with big corporations.
Larry Lessig, who’s quoted well in the article, should be proud.
Via Donna Wentworth at Copyfight.
Moore’s law
From Joshua Green’s Atlantic profile of Judge Roy Moore:
These words [from his address to the Southern Baptist Pastors’ conference in Nashville] belong not to Moore but to Samuel Adams, who used them to address the members of Congress on August 1, 1776. But they neatly fit Moore’s view that his Ten Commandments battle is a critical part of the larger American epic, and that he himself is an American revolutionary like Adams. In Moore’s way of seeing things, the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Christian nation. He attributes the fact that many do not share this view to the malign influence of power-hungry federal judges and unprincipled lawmakers. Moore’s installation of the Rock was an effort to force the issue, and its intended effect was as much legal as political. Put simply, Moore believes that the law vindicates him, and he has plundered texts from the Bible to Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England to build an elaborate case that God is the basis of American government. Where Moore parts company with others who share this historical view is in his assertion that the government therefore falls under the sovereignty of God. His position goes beyond the notion of a civil religion and beyond even the views of most conservative judicial scholars. It amounts to theocracy. “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers,” he declared in Nashville, citing Romans 13:1. “For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Much of his standard speech is devoted to a complex textual analysis in support of this argument, complete with a PowerPoint slide show citing key quotations.
Lest we think Roy Moore’s rise is a contained rural and southern phenomenon:
For years Moore’s has been a story that everybody in Alabama and almost nobody outside it knows. But the likelihood that he will challenge the state’s incumbent governor, Bob Riley, a fellow Republican, is bringing him back to national attention. The race between Riley, the darling of the business community, and Moore, the religious conservative in excelsis, is shaping up as a showdown between the two pillars of the Republican Party, with implications that reach far beyond Alabama. In the local parlance Moore appears poised to “ride the Rock” to the governorship and re-establish himself in the spotlight. Only this time, if the Lord delivers him there, he will have an eye toward reshaping not just his courtroom but also his country in the image of God.
Read the rest of "Moore’s law" in the extended entry.
Not yet
This week it looked like Love in Action might be put out of action. We should be so lucky; they were granted an extension:
Upon arrival by the State Dept. of Health yesterday, the folks at LIA/R claimed they had just received the notification that day and would need the 7 days granted in the letter to determine how they will proceed. After reading the information that EJ posted last night, I’m surprised they were granted the seven day extension. It seems as though, in addition to the possible insurance fraud issue, LIA/R may have been prescribing medications without a license as well.
UPDATE: LIA has 2 house manager positions listed under ”new employment opportunity posted”
Roy and Rove
Joshua Green’s Atlantic profile of Judge Roy Moore has this nugget on Moore’s encounter with Karl Christian Rove:
[T]he spotlight shifted to the contest to replace the retiring chief justice of the [Alabama] state supreme court. Three experienced candidates had already declared when, in November of 1999, the Christian Family Association began an effort to draft Moore. It seemed like a long shot. The favorite to win the primary was a sitting supreme-court justice named Harold See, who was backed by the state’s Republican establishment and the business community. And See had another advantage: his campaign was being run by Karl Rove.
Undaunted, Moore entered the race in December, making the announcement in his courtroom, with the Ten Commandments plaque prominently displayed behind him. Even after all the attention Moore was still viewed as a gadfly rather than a serious contender for the state’s highest judicial office. Underfunded, and the target of a vicious Rove attack campaign, Moore stayed focused on the Ten Commandments and his contention that religious laxity “corresponded directly with school violence, homosexuality, and crime.” His message was identical to the one in his previous race: “We must return God to our public life and restore the moral foundation of our law.”
On the day of the primary Moore delivered one of the most surprising defeats of Rove’s career, and later sailed to victory in the general election. This time the whole state witnessed it: Moore had defeated a black belt.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Hate Crime hope
The Carpetbagger asks is the entire anti-gay crusade falling apart? He points to this week’s House vote:
Unexpectedly, the House voted 223 to 199 in favor of an amendment by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) that expands current hate crime law to include some crimes involving sexual orientation, gender and disability. Under current law, the federal government assists local and state authorities prosecuting limited types of crimes based on the victim’s race, religion or ethnic background.
The House has been the chief obstacle in numerous previous attempts to expand hate crimes law, and Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group, said it was an “incredibly historic vote” that could give momentum to similar action in the Senate.
Raise taxes!
I’ve said it before - before New Orleans - and I’ll say it again: we should raise taxes.
I guess there’s no way for a pol to say it, least of all George Bush, but I so would have liked to hear last night that we’re going to rebuild New Orleans and we’re going to have to pay for it so…
Instead what we get, with the Heritage Foundation to back him up, is our president pledging none:
President Bush on Friday ruled out raising taxes to pay the massive costs of Gulf Coast reconstruction, saying other government spending must be cut to pay for a recovery effort expected to swell the national debt by $200 billion or more.
Reporter: What will it cost?
Bush: Well, it’s gonna cost whatever it costs, and we’re gonna be wise about the money we spend. I mean, you’re ask- I, I, I - we haven’t totalled up all the bridges… and highways.
Has anyone ever heard the saying that you don’t get something for nothing??? I just honestly don’t get how we can put our head in the sand and spend our way into oblivion.
Bill Clinton, talking sense, at least wants to repeal the tax cuts.
TiVo DRM: “bug” no excuse
MegaZone says “TiVo isn’t alone” and “doesn’t have much choice.” I know they’re not alone, unfortunately, but they have made a choice. It’s the wrong one.
Here’s Wendy Seltzer on the meaning of TiVo’s DRM bug:
It might well have been a bug in this instance, but bugs like that don’t just come from nowhere, with fully formed error messages alerting viewers that “Due to policy set by the copyright holder, ‘Keep until I delete’ is not permitted.” Maybe it wasn’t meant to show up here and now, on broadcast TV, but someplace in TiVo’s corporate innards, someone decided that unrequested expiration was a feature.
Nothing in copyright law mandates this “feature.” To the contrary, once you have a lawful copy of a copyrighted work, the first sale doctrine says you have the choice whether to save, lend, or discard it, while Betamax says timeshifting creates a lawful copy. If not copyright law, then copyright-holder muscle probably sits behind TiVo’s design. Copyright holders work with Macrovision to implement extra-copyright controls, then jointly lean on TiVo to respond to them. Together, they restrict user rights beyond copyright.
The bug also illustrates the fallibility of proprietary technologies (particularly those with automatic update). “Update” doesn’t always mean “improve”—an update can take away functions you’ve come to enjoy, just because someone else objects. This misfeature of any DRM that implements “revocability” gives “planned obsolescence” a whole new meaning.
UPDATE: Flag on IFC, another bug?
Heterosexuals weaken marriage again
This is what happens when you leave marriage to the heterosexuals:
Bridget Jones is untying the knot. Renee Zellweger, who played the lovelorn Brit in “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” and country music star Kenny Chesney will have their four-month-old marriage annulled, Chesney’s publicist, Holly Gleason, and Zellweger’s Los Angeles-based publicist Nanci Ryder, confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday.
People magazine first reported the breakup, which brings to an end a whirlwind romance that began shortly before a surprise wedding in May. The 36-year-old actress and Chesney, 37, wed in a small ceremony on the Caribbean island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was the first marriage for both.
Via James Joyner.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Liberal comedian sues blogger
Garrison Keillor—a liberal comedian!—is threatening to sue MNspeak—some blog!—that uses a t-shirt to poke fun of his mega-gigantic media empire. You’d think we shot Guy Noir or something.
Man, this guy is getting old.
Fighting off the urge to tell everyone on the planet about the old guy’s folly, the first thing I decide to do is give him a second chance. I immediately call Keillor’s lawyer, and the brief conversation goes something like this:
Me: “Listen, you really don’t want to do this. I highly suggest you tell your client to revoke this cease and desist.”
Him: “Why?”
Me: “First off, your client has no legal basis for this, and it’s clear you’re just trying to bully me. Secondly, this is going to make your client look extremely out of touch. I’ll even write the headline for you: ‘Liberal Comedian Sues Blogger.’ Do you really want that?”
Him: “Is that a threat, Mr. Sorgatz?”
Me: “Dear god, no. I’m trying to be nice about this. I’m just telling you to let this go. I’ve made no real money off this, and there are only a handful of t-shirts left. If you let it go, I’ll let it go. This is just going to blow up in your client’s face.”
Him: “I’ll consult with my client.”
The lawyer says Keillor still wishes to pursue his cease and desist:
So what now? I’ve temporarily honored the cease and desist, but haven’t decided how to proceed. Since there were only about 10 shirts left (and I had no plans on reprinting new ones), there’s no real economic reason to pursue this. And besides, let’s be clear about the scope of what we’re actually talking about: a fairly stupid t-shirt with four words on it. In an age of much bigger problems, is this really worth fighting for?
He’s looking for a pro bono lawyer. I hope he finds one. This is precisely how they bully us all.
Via Kos: “Keillor’s an idiot.”
And Sully: “What a jerk.”
Bravo Lego!
Such a cool company. Lego Factory sounds like a great product. This reaction to a customer hack makes it even better:
When Lego executives recently discovered that adult fans of the iconic plastic bricks had hacked one of the company’s new development tools for digital designers, they did a surprising thing: They cheered.
Unlike executives at so many corporations, who would be loathe to let their customers anywhere near the inner workings of their software tools, the Lego honchos saw an opportunity to lean on the collective thinking of an Internet community to improve their own product while bolstering relations with committed customers.
All it took was being open-minded enough to see that their biggest fans weren’t trying to rip them off; they were trying to improve Lego’s products in a way that, just maybe, the company’s own designers hadn’t thought of.
The photo (click to enlarge) is my nephew in front of the giant Lego Empire State Building in the Times Square Toys ‘R Us.
Constitutional consternation
Joe Gandelman says the court ruling that reciting the pledge is unconstitutional will further boost the confirmation chances of John Roberts and could even lead to a more conservative candidate for the second Supreme Court seat.
Maybe. I’m more confident that it boosts the political prospects of Judge Roy Moore (I’ll have extended excerpts of the excellent Atlantic Monthly profile of Moore in a follow-up post).
I agree with Joe that Michael Newdow, the atheist who brought the suit, “wants to impose his views on the whole society as much as social conservatives want to impose theirs.” For background Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger, points to a detailed article on the original lawsuit he wrote 3 years ago called “one nation, easily divisible?”
I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a local biology teacher last year:
A Brit who’s the son-in-law of the [military school’s] Commandant, he spoke of the problems teaching biology here. For example some students flat out refuse to even listen in class. He believes the problem is Constitutional and boiled it down to this: the lack of religious education in school. He believes religion should be taught in school. All religion. World religion. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, you name it.
I was inclined to agree with him then. The more I think about it the more I agree.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
NPR: fair and balanced for real
It’s expanding its news operation at a time when most others are cutting back. It’s in the midst of a $15 million, three-year plan to add 45 staffers and open new bureaus, including one in West Africa.
But more important, listen to an NPR program for 30 seconds and you know you’re listening to NPR. Unlike its TV cousin, PBS, whose specialties have been cloned by cable networks that siphon off the viewers underwriters want to reach, it’s tough to argue NPR is redundant.
“Public radio has focused on the few things that are unique in the marketplace. That’s why we flourish and they struggle,” said Ken Stern, NPR executive vice president.
NPR is where you routinely hear what’s going on in far corners of the world. Its stations run programs that tell even domestic stories with a texture absent elsewhere on radio. It’s where issues are debated with depth, not volume, and where, occasionally, you hear only silence or birds chirping. And it’s where people casually toss around words like “paradigm” when “model” or “world view” would do.
Being non-profit, they’re free to fill the gap:
“Covering the world is expensive and doesn’t have the same return on investment, the same profit margins, the same return on capital--all things that we don’t care about,” Stern said. “They retreated and that created an enormous vacuum for NPR, and it’s been a conscious strategy to fill that gaping need. And we can do that . . . precisely because we’re non-profit.”
No liberal bias; instead there’s real balance that shows:
Klose and Stern are dismissive of the idea that there is too much of a liberal slant to public broadcasting. That’s been fueled by Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the agency that funnels public money to public TV and radio.
“It’s an urban myth,” said Klose, who worked in Chicago as the Washington Post Midwest bureau chief for four years in the 1980s.
“The problem with Tomlinson isn’t that he disrupted funding or affected our journalism, because that will never happen, but he created smoke,” Stern said. “It’s smoke and people who don’t know us fanned the urban myth.”
According to Stern NPR listenership is “self-identified as one-third liberal, one-third conservative, one-third independent,” and he cited a study by CPB that “showed that we’re one of the most trusted media outlets in the country.”
I still wish they’d kiss off government funding.
Victory in MA
In a 157 to 39 vote defeat, even a co-sponsor voted against the constitutional amendment:
“Today, gay marriage is the law of the land,” Mr. Lees said, noting that same-sex marriage became legal in May 2004. Voting for the amendment, he said, would mean “taking action against our friends and neighbors who today are currently enjoying the benefits of marriage.”
Saying he had heard from over 7,000 constituents, most against the amendment, Mr. Lees added, “Gay marriage has begun and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry who could not before.”
To those advocates of a federal marriage amendment I say, bring it on.
No, he won’t
I like Michael Moore. And I like his films. But I don’t think he’ll do it (and don’t really trust MSNBC “gossip” as a source):
Will Michael Moore turn his cameras on Katrina?
The controversial filmmaker is “seriously considering” turning the devastating storm and its aftermath into a documentary, says a source. “It has all the elements that made ‘Fahrenheit 911’ such a powerful film,â€Â� says a source. “The political outrage, the human suffering, and the incredible footage.”
Joe Gandelman says it “seems like it’d fit the pattern.”
I don’t think so. This, I think, fits the pattern.
Google’s blog search
It’s here. The FAQ is here. Word has spread fast. Anil at Six Apart says:
All the basic functions you’d expect from Google search results are present, including ranking results by date or by relevance. (Interestingly, the default is by relevance, like other Google searches, instead of by date, which is the default for most blog displays.) But more importantly, the advanced search offers powerful functionality such
as searching by date ranges and limiting to individual blog authors, in addition to features like searching for words in a blog post title or by language, which have been deployed in the past on other services.
The new features in Google Blog Search are useful because of the (perhaps subtle) distinction in how it works, compared to the traditional searches powered by Google’s googlebot indexer. Google Blog Search works by crawling XML feeds, rather than simply crawling the HTML output of a blog. Because feeds are, at least ideally, better structured than the published HTML of most blogs, it’s possible to extract information like authorship of a post in a fairly consistent way.
I wonder what that means for blogs that put little (Sully, Drum) in their feed?
Via Boing Boing.
“Don’t take it. Make it.”
That’s a Current TV promo phrase I like. But shaping this content into a coherent cable channel is a challenge:
Al Gore’s new cable network, Current TV, is a media smorgasbord of quick, slick and sometimes very interesting short-form video segments targeted at the iPod generation. But it often leaves you feeling cheated out of the main course after a tasty appetizer.
The segments, nauseatingly called pods, run between two and five minutes and comprise a mix-and-match of short films, MTV-type snippets and video blogs. Some of the pods are refreshingly authentic and make the youth-oriented programming on MTV and VH1 look vacuous. Others, however, are smug, unsubstantial and even boorish at times, and seem to finish just at the point where they get interesting.
The short format is partly to blame, but one also senses inexperience and lack of judgment on the part of the producers and editors.
[...]
The only elements that work consistently well on the network are the information tidbits provided by Google, such as the top 10 news items searched, or survey data like the value of the global cosmetics market.
That said, Current TV does an excellent job of defining what is emerging as a new network format: televised short-form video, backed up by the kind of web video presence pioneered by sites such as AtomFilms, Ifilm and ZeD TV, among others.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
TiVo DRM
Matt Haughey at PVRBlog quotes a note from a reader:
I recently got a sample of Tivo DRM, accidentally I suspect. Recently a Simpson’s rerun recorded with a red-flag next to it (an icon I’ve never seen before). When I selected the episode, I got a message to the effect that “the copyright holder prohibited saving the episode past date mm/dd”. I also noted that this episode could not be copied using Tivo Togo (but ironically it could be “saved to tape” - I guess that is the analog hole).
I have two comments for Tivo, and one for any publisher who is foolish enough to activate this flag.
Tivo 1: Just because someone asks for a feature, there is no reason to give it to them.
Tivo 2: Better treat your subscribers well, or you won’t have a business. Even your lifetime subscriptions won’t protect you when I (and many others) decide to switch over to an HDTV DVR.
To the Publisher: Go ahead and prevent me from saving your show past a certain date, I dare you. I can’t think of a single show that I would still watch! I can’t think of a quicker way for you to loose my viewership!
Given that this was an episode from the early 90’s, I suspect the copy protection flag got turned on by accident. None of my likely reactions will be accidental though…
--Michael McKay
Matt’s tracked it all down, he’s even got screenshots.
This sucks in the following ways (and many more I’m sure others can think of):
1. It treats all TiVo customers like they are criminals with big scary warnings about what you can and can’t do. The TiVo interface normally is a friendly thing, not something throwing red flags everywhere. Surfacing the red flag to the top, then blaming everything on the copyright holder, and then having the TiVo website blame macrovision and even go so far as to say ”Please do not contact TiVo Customer Support regarding copy protection related issues” is a total cop-out.
2. It removes control from your TiVo. For the last 7 years, you’ve been able to record and playback TiVo’d shows and save them as long as you wanted or had space. Now, outsiders are telling your TiVo when to delete themselves whether you like it or not. In some cases we’re talking about programs you could have transfered last week with the 7.1 OS that are now being blocked. If you look closely at the ToDo list screenshot, you can see the previous night’s King of The Hill doesn’t have protection.
3. Previous mentions of this Macrovision “feature” discussed it only in terms of premium and pay-per-view content—in other words, stuff readily available on DVD that movie studios might prefer you went out and bought or rented instead of just watched on HBO. Now I could understand that sort of restriction since a PPV movie is expected to be watched once and not saved or burned to DVD, but these examples are happening on regular TV shows, not premium movies.
A mistake?
update: I just wanted to reiterate that yes, this was the result of a mistake on the part of the station providing syndicated shows. Still, my issue is with the TiVo software itself, for allowing red flags on content that was neither PPV or VOD. TiVo’s head of legal assured Wired Magazine last fall that it would only apply to Pay Per View and Video on Demand, and yet, it appears it can happen to any show if the station adds the flag. This hole should be fixed so that mistakes in the future on the part of networks doesn’t end up blocking normal TiVo activities.
Emphasis is Matt’s, with whom I completely agree.
Note from John
Yes, that John:
HE TAKES RESPONSIBILITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well sort of:
“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong."”
Out of action?
Ol Cranky sent a note saying that Love In Action may soon be out of action in Memphis:
[T]he state dept of health has already sent two letters (the first of which the dept did not receive a return receipt for) to John Smid indicating their displeasure with LIA/R operating unlicensed mental health facilities in the Memphis area. The latest letter, dated 8Sep05, gives Smid, et al 7 days to shut down their facilities or apply for a license. If the facilities are still operating when re-evaluated this Thursday, a cease & desist order will be issued.
A significant victory, even as we expect they’ll just move to another state with looser laws. Cranky’s got more, as does EJ and Queer Action Coalition.
Right on Elijah!
Time was when Hollywood celebrities feared and fought accusations that they were gay.
The Lord of the Rings star is often caught out by Web sites with far from subtle names, like http://www.veryverygay.com, when he’s surfing the Internet, but he’s rarely offended.
And, unlike many stars, he isn’t planning any legal action to stop the pranksters--he simply marvels at their creativity.
He says, “There’s one that’s called elijahwoodisveryverygay (sic), which is actually a personal favorite of mine, it’s absolutely hilarious.
“It’s this kind of joke Web site that maintains that they have proof that I am very very gay in various photographs--photographic evidence (of me) holding hands with a male.”
Even fans of The Lord of the Rings trilogy want the stars of the film to be homosexual. Wood explains, “(They) want to create moments that they didn’t get to see in the film, of these characters in sexual congress.
“I was actually at a film festival once… and this fan came up with a gift… I open the gift in front of all these people that I’m talking to and it happens to be a photo from one of these Web sites of me and Dominic Monaghan making sweet love. If you didn’t know any better, it kinda looks real.
“These people have a lot of time on their hands and my hat’s off (to them) because it’s very good work.”
Ian Ayres and Jennifer Brown, authors of Straightforward: How to Mobilize Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights, would be proud. Me too.
Via Gay Orbit.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Dead links
I’ve seen bloggers complain about sites that charge for content (and ask for tips themselves) and about Salon’s Site Pass (a mandatory ad model I quite like) but they’re happy to quote and link to Yahoo News stories.
I try not to.
My blog is more than a catalogue of my thoughts and ideas, it’s also an index of my interests. I go back to those things I link to again and again. Yahoo News links go dead too quickly.
Instead I copy a good chunk of their text and paste it right into the search box. From there a list of newspapers with the same story pops up, or sometimes stories with more depth and different takes. It’s those I quote.
There are newspapers that let links go dead sometimes too, but most don’t.
Oh and if registration is required, use the Daily Kos login:
A while back, I asked people to register a “dailykos” account for every free site requiring a registration.
Well, it’s a rare day when I come across a site that doesn’t have one set up. Heck, the last post, taken from the Evansville (IN) Courrier & Press, had an account. So we’re not talking big time papers here. So here’s a reminder to the old times and announcement to the more recent visitors:
If the site asks for a username, it’s:
dailykos
If the site asks for an email login, it’s:
(BTW, don’t email me at , since all email sent to it goes straight into a spam folder unless you’re in my address book.)
There are two possible passwords. Most of the time, it’ll be:dailykos
However, there’s a minority of sites that require a number in the password, so if “dailykos” doesn’t work, try:
dailykos1
Now, if you come across a site that doesn’t have a dailykos account, please set one up.
Use it you’ll love it!
UPDATE: For those who for one reason or another 
Try using BugMeNot.com. Open a separate browser window (or, if you’re using Firefox, open a new tab) and go to the BugMeNot site. Just enter the URL of the new site that’s asking for registration and, if it has one on file, it will display the information for you. You can use that to access the “registration required” site.
Oh, and if you use Firefox, you might want to try the roachfiend.com BugMeNot extension for Firefox. It works. Once installed, just right-click on the registration form and select “BugMeNot” from the menu.
