afongen

As if the Total Information Awareness office’s logo weren’t bad enough, Ready.gov‘s icons are just plain awful. Or maybe they’re hilarious, as demonstrated here.

Hmph. That’s two days in a row that I’ve described something as hilarious. Gotta get me a thesaurus. Either that or stop reading funny things.

Story on Infoworld.

No comment.

These Weight Watchers cards from 1974 are hilarious. I just kept laughing and laughing and laughing.

Lawrence Lessig writes about MIT Press requesting permission to publish single lines from 12 different songs in a book being released this summer. They requested permission and received 10 forms and two replies.

One reply, from the representatives of the Kinks, demanded $1500 … for permission to reprint a single line “help me, help me, help, me sail away” from the song “Sunny afternoon,” and $10,000 for a more extensive quote.

The other reply, from representatives of the Kobain estate (which I assume is within Courtney Love?s control) forbids him from reprinting the line “polly says her back hurts? from the Nirvana song “Polly.”

MIT has nonetheless decided that these words are protected by fair use, despite these demands.

Sounds about right to me.

The Farscape series finale aired in the US a couple nights ago. If every episode were that strong, I’d miss the show. Phenomenal. One of the things that I really liked about Farscape was that it did not often talk down to the audience, repeatedly banging viewers over the head with explanations for what was happening. Star Trek: Voyager did that all the time, drove me nuts. Instead, Farscape often started an episode mid-story, leaving it to us to fill in the blanks to figure out how the crew had gotten themselves in a jam this time, or even what the jam was. The finale did this, and I am glad.

I just wish they’d ended it about a minute earlier. Call me sentimental.

An organizer of yesterday’s “support our troops” rally at the State Capitol expressed frustration at the pro-war stance of many who attended. It’s frustrating, yes, but not surprising. I haven’t come across many who make the distinction.

It doesn’t help that “support” is so nebulous. Have you given much thought to what it means? I haven’t. Do I wish for our soldiers to come home safely? Yes. In fact, I wish they’d come home now. Am I saddened when I hear of soldiers dying in this war? Yes, deeply. Will I spurn those who return, angry at their participation? No, of course not. Does this mean that I support the troops? You tell me. Am I aware of and grateful for the sacrifices they’ve made in the defense of this country? Yes. Do I think this war in Iraq is in defense of this country? No. Do I oppose the war? Wholeheartedly. Does this mean that I don’t support the troops? You tell me.

I’m not going to write a whole lot about the war. It angers me too much for me to be rational about it, and there’s nothing that I would say that hasn’t already been said hundreds of times elsewhere. For now, let it stand that I oppose the war. I do not accept the Bush Administration’s rationale, and I fear the path that they are taking this country and the world.

I do not say that lightly: I fear this path.

If you don’t understand why, I suggest that you read Fareed Zakaria’s excellent essay, “The Arrogant Empire.” While you’re at it, Gary Kamiya’s elegant “Sleepwalking toward Baghdad is well worth your time, as are the remarks by US Senator Robert C. Byrd: “The Arrogance of Power.”

Oh, one more thing. If you didn’t read the whole article about the rally at the Capitol, you missed the closing paragraphs:

The only speaker who received a hostile reception was N. Ruby Zigrino, a Muslim from Minneapolis. She was initially cheered when she said she supports “ousting a tyrant regime.”

But she then read passages from the Qur’an, suggested that a new Marshall Plan will be needed in Iraq, and said administration officials should study foreign-policy failures to avoid repeating them.

Her listeners responded with boos and shouts of “Screw Muslims!” “Screw the Qur’an!” and “Go home!”

Reading this makes me physically ill.

Remember the Star Trek episode “Patterns of Force“? Kirk and Spock discover a Nazi-like regime headed up by Kirk’s old Academy professor John Gill. Turns out that Gill is being heavily drugged and used as a figurehead Führer, kept in a small room and forced to give speeches to rally the people of Ekos in a war against the nearby planet Zeon.

That’s what I’m reminded of whenever I see George Bush delivering a speech on television, especially when he’s speaking from the Oval Office. The expressionless, fish-eyed stare, the way his head doesn’t move, how he doesn’t seem to understand what he’s saying… it wigs me out.

Lest you misunderstand me, I’m not reacting to the war by taking personal jabs at Bush. Give me some credit. It’s just that I honestly have a hard time watching him deliver a speech.

Catching up on my weblog reading, I notice an interesting coincidence: iBooks don’t get thirsty and a cute picture gone horribly wrong. Ouch.

Fugu is a graphical frontend to SFTP and SCP for Mac OS X. It can even set up an SSH tunnel. Excellent.

I felt weird just now writing those in all caps.

I’ll probably raise the ire of more than a few by writing this, but I’m kinda glad that Farscape and Buffy are coming to an end. Both were excellent but have been on the decline the past year or two. I’ve enjoyed very little of either show’s past season. I’ve continued to watch because I have held out hope that things would improve, but in my heart of hearts I’ve just been wishing that the shows would end while they were at least moderately good.

Farscape in particular seems to have been suffering from jumpy, uncoordinated writing. On the other hand, the last couple episodes have been rather good, and although it hasn’t aired in the US yet, it seems the series finale was excellent. Too bad that it was supposed to be just the season finale. So maybe there was hope, but… oh well.