Just in time for the resumption of the last few episodes of Farscape tonight comes the news that UPN is giving Firefly a pass. According to the Firefly Immediate Assistance…
Just in time for the resumption of the last few episodes of Farscape tonight comes the news that UPN is giving Firefly a pass.
According to the Firefly Immediate Assistance page, “According to a 20th Century Fox source, UPN has decided not to pick up Firefly. While the show appealed to them, they didn’t feel it was a good fit with their current programming needs.”
More news, they say, later today.
(via, natch, Doyce)
The Internet has finally arrived — barely — in Iraq, as Hussein’s regime is allowing Internet cafes and even home Internet access. The catch, of course, is that everything routes…
The Internet has finally arrived — barely — in Iraq, as Hussein’s regime is allowing Internet cafes and even home Internet access.
The catch, of course, is that everything routes through the Iraqi’s state ISP, where, presumably, it is closely monitored and filtered (and which is subject to convenient outages).
The fun part is the name of the state ISP: uruklink.net.
They say it’s named afer the ancient city of Uruk.
Uh-huh. Things don’t get much more ironic than that.
(Non-Tolkien types can be let in on the joke below.)
A marvelously entertaining web site on life in the Antarctic, much along the lines of M*A*S*H. Fine stuff. (via BoingBoing)…
A marvelously entertaining web site on life in the Antarctic, much along the lines of M*A*S*H. Fine stuff.
(via BoingBoing)
But ready for … well, just plain not ready. But you can get a sneak peak, if you want. Though I can’t guarantee it will work at any given moment….
But ready for … well, just plain not ready.
But you can get a sneak peak, if you want. Though I can’t guarantee it will work at any given moment.
Now that the reservations are all done, it’s time for the booking. By which I mean the Purchase, Reference and Reading of Diverse Books Regarding the Areas to be Toured….
Now that the reservations are all done, it’s time for the booking.
By which I mean the Purchase, Reference and Reading of Diverse Books Regarding the Areas to be Toured.
I’ve been to the UK twice before.
The first time, I did extensive research in the library, and made copious photocopies. Copious. I stapled these together into books for various parts of the journey, cross-referencing maps to the interesting places to visit, etc.
Last time, we bought a few travel books, and borrowed some others.
This time …
… well, heck, the Internet has changed all that, right? I mean, you can simply look up whatever you want, right?
Well, yeah, I could do that. And print out pages and create my own tour book again. Or be particularly geeky and download the pages to my Palm and carry that with me.
On the other hand, that presupposes I know everywhere I plan on going. Bzzzt. The advantage to a travel book or two is that they cover areas you don’t expect to go to, but do. Or they have info on restaurants.
The local B&N had a copy of last year’s Fodor’s London guide in the remainder stack, for $4. Given that this year’s is more like $20, and I suspect that most of the landmarks are still there, I think that was a fine deal.
I also pondered getting a Zagat London. Margie and I did run into trouble last time finding places to eat; it’s one thing to see that there’s a restaurant in town that has three stars, or that serves this-and-such, but the Zagat guides are nice for having actual people’s opinions in them.
I don’t know as we need too many straightforward tour books (a la Fodor, or Michellin). But it might be nice to have some specialty, or oddity, books. So, for example, I always enjoy visiting Neolithic sites — Stonehenge, Avebury, various stone circles and menhirs and quoits. I’m pretty certain I have a book or two that we can bring on that.
But another thing we enjoyed doing last time around was visiting old churches, of which Britain has a plenitude of. Hell, you could spend a few months in London alone. And I’m not just talking about the Westminster and St Paul sorts of places, but the smaller churches. Lots designed by Wren. Lots of interesting styles and architectures. Many of them closed most days. Saw a book, England’s Thousand Best Churches, which might be interesting to pick up, though it doesn’t cover Wales, alas.
There was another one, with the rather apprehension-instilling name of The Christian Traveller’s Guide to Great Britain. Mercifully, it’s more of a guide to religous sites on the island, though mostly Christian ones, and it treats them all with historic interest and respect.
Of course, now I also wonder if I need to get some sort of satchel, to carry all my books around in whilst touring.
One advantage I have is that most of these are available through Amazon, and if I buy a few of them, I’ll get free shipping, plus the normal 20-30% off, so the actual cost incurred will be minimized. Heck, a lot of them are availble used, too …
I suppose it would also be a good idea to coordinate with the others, to make sure that we don’t buy multiple copies of the same book.
One thing we can’t buy in advance was another fun sort of tour guide. We discovered that different regions have craft shop guilds or alliances or associations, and we used those to visit different, interesting places. Sometimes they were dud, glorified gift shops. Other times they were very cool art galleries, or the sales hall for local artisans. Other times they were fun ceramics shops. We picked up some good gifts (for others and ourselves). Something else worth thinking of in our touring plans.
Time once again for a heart-warming episode of The Thursday Thumb-Twiddler!…
Time once again for a heart-warming episode of The Thursday Thumb-Twiddler!
Okay, it’s probably an annoying coincidence that just as we’re looking at getting Katherine into preschool, both Stacy and Anna write of worries about their children having to deal with…
Okay, it’s probably an annoying coincidence that just as we’re looking at getting Katherine into preschool, both Stacy and Anna write of worries about their children having to deal with bullies. Says the former:
The future scares the hell out of me. My son is in kindergarten. Right now he is the sweetest, friendliest, most open child. The thought of his spirit being damaged in any way by some arrogant little shit is enough to make my vision blur and my fists clench. His father and I simply will not allow it to happen.
Says the latter:
I see shades of this future on the playground sometimes. Will is at the top of the slide, politely waiting his turn, saying “scyoo me” when walking past other kids. Then some little cretin comes along, shoves him (and the other polite little kids)out of the way and is in general an obnoxious crud bucket. No parent in sight of course.
Margie and I will protect Katherine from others as much as we can (and protect others from Katherine, too). God knows my own experience with bullies and other anti-social types in school are raw wounds to this day.
But I also know that we won’t always be there. And that she will encounter anti-social behavior, and bullying, and there sometimes there won’t be any recourse, immediately, but either sucking it up, or punching the kid in the nose.
Life isn’t fair. That was a cold, hard lesson for me to learn, and I still rail against it.
Life isn’t fair, but each of us is called to be fair anyway.
And she will be hurt, dammit. I’d love to hover unseen above her, hurling lightning bolts like Jove at the jerks that hurt her, but I can’t. And even if I could at school, she’s going to encounter jerks and bullies and anti-social behavior in college, and on the job, and on the street.
She needs to learn how to deal with it.
And she needs to learn how not to pass it on.
That’s the best we can do for her.
There are two important cases running through the Federal courts regarding indefinite detention of US citizens labelled by the US Government as “enemy combatants.” These are pretty important cases, since…
There are two important cases running through the Federal courts regarding indefinite detention of US citizens labelled by the US Government as “enemy combatants.” These are pretty important cases, since there is a serious concern that the ability of the government to indefinitely detain, without counsel or judicial review, an individual simply by calling them an “enemy combatant” is subject to terrible abuse.
One of these cases, Hamdi, just got an appeals court decision that favored the US government position — in this case, that there is no inherent judicial oversight for the military detention of a US citizen captured “in a zone of active combat in a foreign theater of conflict.”
Because it is undisputed that Hamdi was captured in a zone of active combat in a foreign theater of conflict, we hold that the submitted declaration [broadly outlining the executive branch’s findings and conclusions about Hamdi] is a sufficient basis upon which to conclude that the Commander in Chief has constitutionally detained Hamdi pursuant to the war powers entrusted to him by the United States Constitution. No further factual inquiry is necessary or proper, and we remand the case with directions to dismiss the petition.
While this is potentially open to abuse, the basics of it are actually pretty reasonable. If you’re fighting in a combat zone on the opposite site, and are captured by US troops, you can expect to cool your heels indefinitely in a military prison like any other POW.
A good summary of the court’s findings can be found here (and above).
The court did not address the issues that will come up in the Padilla case. In fact, they intentionally avoided it.
We have no occasion . . . to address the designation as an enemy combatant of an American citizen captured on American soil or the role that counsel might play in such a proceeding. We shall, in fact, go no further in this case than the specific context before us — that of the undisputed detention of a citizen during a combat operation undertaken in a foreign country and a determination by the executive that the citizen was allied with enemy forces.
Padilla was picked up in the US, accused of being a terrorist planning an attack, and thus an “enemy combatant,” and slapped into a military brig indefinitely like a POW.
The Padilla case is far more disturbing. The Executive Branch claims that a determination of “enemy combatant” can be made by the President about any US citizen, in any circumstance, and that determination removes from them any protection of due process, counsel, etc.
In other words, if the President took it into his head to name me as an “enemy combatant,” I could be thrown in the cooler forever, with no lawyer, no right of habeus corpus, nothing.
We have seen that unfettered domestic police power (e.g., the FBI in the 60s) can lead to significant human rights abuses. “Enemies lists” and “lists of subversives” are prone to not only error, but malice.
It seems to me that if the Administration view on Padilla is upheld, it is a terrible, terrible loophole that, sooner or later, will be abused, possibly widely abused. That’s independent of whether Padilla himself is guilty as sin or innocent as pure-driven snow. It’s even independent of whether you think the current Administration is the Antichrist Incarnate or the Noble Defenders of Virtue.
In the words of Lyndon Johnson, himself no piker as to law-making or executive power:
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
I don’t have a big problem with the Hamdi ruling, as stated. I have a much bigger problem if the same ruling is made on Padilla.
Event 1 DAVE: “Katherine, how old are you?” (Prepares to show her two fingers, knowing that she doesn’t know how old she is.) KATHERINE: “I two-anna-half!” DAVE: “!!!”Event 2 DAVE:…
Event 1
DAVE: “Katherine, how old are you?” (Prepares to show her two fingers, knowing that she doesn’t know how old she is.)
KATHERINE: “I two-anna-half!”
DAVE: “!!!”
Event 2
DAVE: “Tell me about the Christmas ornaments on the tree.”
KATHERINE: (Points to elephant) “Dat my elly!” (Points to boat) “Dat Mommy’s boat.” (Points to camel)
DAVE: (Waits for her to say, “Dat Daddy’s camel,” knowing that she doesn’t know the second person possessive pronoun.)
KATHERINE: “Dat your camel.”
DAVE: “!!!”
Coincidentally, we got call today that we’ve gotten a spot in the pre-school registration for South Suburban Rec District in the next few weeks. And just in time, I’d say …
So, last summer, folks got up in arms because the New York State Regents exams were bowdlerizing, censoring, altering, and otherwise messing around with the literature excerpts they included in…
So, last summer, folks got up in arms because the New York State Regents exams were bowdlerizing, censoring, altering, and otherwise messing around with the literature excerpts they included in the test.
As a result, they promised vigorously to never do so again, or, if they did, to at least indicate through elipses (…) where they were cutting material, and with [brackets] where paraphrases were taking place.
Sort of like we learned in English class.
Problem is, they’re still doing it.
In new guidelines, the state promised complete paragraphs with no deletions, but an excerpt from Kafka (on the importance of literature) changes his words and removes the middle of a paragraph without using ellipses, in the process deleting mentions of God and suicide.
The new state guidelines promised not to sanitize, but a passage on people’s conception of time from Aldous Huxley (a product of England’s colonial era) deletes the paragraphs on how unpunctual “the Oriental” is.
They also failed to note author names, as they had promised to, and messed up a passage on the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 such that it plausibly has multiple answers that are correct — though the state still thinks that only one of them is “clearly” correct.
The state denies there’s anything wrong with what they did, by the way, arguing that “sensitive” material was cut for length, that unmarked cuts took place in passages marked as “adapted,” and a section that quoted multiple writers was mushed into a single narrative because it would have been too confusing.
Riiiiiiight.
And these are the folks who are deciding whether the students are academically strong enough to pass.
Okay, I think it’s cool that scientists have been experimenting with encoding information on non-functional chunks of bacterial DNA, thus demonstrating it can be used as a stable storage medium…
Okay, I think it’s cool that scientists have been experimenting with encoding information on non-functional chunks of bacterial DNA, thus demonstrating it can be used as a stable storage medium even after a hundred generations.
But that what they encoded was “It’s a Small World After All” is not only criminal, it might very well qualify as bacteriological warefare …
(via BoingBoing)
While in this side of the Atlantic, US schools are getting kids expelled or suspended for pointing their fingers, gun-like, at other kids, over in the UK, detention has been…
While in this side of the Atlantic, US schools are getting kids expelled or suspended for pointing their fingers, gun-like, at other kids, over in the UK, detention has been banned in hundreds of schools. Why?
The move is in response to a lawsuit filed by a 15-year-old girl who claims the detention she received while a pupil at Speyside High School in Aberlour, Banffshire, seriously disrupted her education and violated her human rights.
Freya Macdonald launched legal action against Moray council, claiming that her punishments were in contravention of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states it is illegal to detain children in an educational establishment against their will without a court order. Her lawyers have also cited Article 2 of the ECHR, which ensures the right of every child to an education, and Article 3, which protects children from degrading treatment.
Next up: suits claiming that failing grades are “degrading treatment” …
Through an amazing coincidence, a survey published in the same source indicates that a third of British teachers indicate they’ll leave the profession by 2008. The Education Minister thinks that’s a good thing, since he infers that two-thirds of teachers are happy with their jobs.
The nomenclature dilemma for automobile manufacturers: what do you do when all the good names have been taken? Though, frankly, I think the Dodge Kahuna sounds like fun….
The nomenclature dilemma for automobile manufacturers: what do you do when all the good names have been taken?
Though, frankly, I think the Dodge Kahuna sounds like fun.
The London Underground is tres cool. But one of the coolest thing is the maps of the Underground. The original maps were geographically literal, like a real map. But the…
The London Underground is tres cool. But one of the coolest thing is the maps of the Underground.
The original maps were geographically literal, like a real map. But the Underground folks realized early on that this caused a lot of problems, even as the system expanded, twisted on itself, and had areas where stations were close together, and others where they were far apart.
Enter Harry Beck. In 1933, he applied his knowledge of circuit diagrams — which represent paths symbolically, not literally — to create the first modern subway map. That concept has been used for subway and transit maps around the world ever since, including all the current London Underground maps.
But, if you want to see a geographically accurate map of the London Underground, it does exist.
God, I love this kind of twinky stuff.
Those interested in more info, visit the London Transport Museum (if, ahem, you happen to be in London any time soon). And if you think the Underground font (designed in 1916 by Edward Johnston) is cool, it’s available via the P22 type foundry folks.
My first impression in reading the the blurb for this story was annoyance. After reading the details, I’m not so sure. Sarah and Jasmine go out for a night on…
My first impression in reading the the blurb for this story was annoyance. After reading the details, I’m not so sure.
Sarah and Jasmine go out for a night on the town. Sarah is underage to drink. Jasmine offers to be the designated driver. Sarah gets drunk. Jasmine drives the car only as far as her own house, then gives the drunken, underage Sarah the keys.
Sarah then proceeds to plow into Doris, who will probably never fully recover.
Doris suing Sarah and Jasmine. But, more importantly, Sarah is suing Jasmine for backing out on her commitment to be a designated driver. UPDATE: My mistake. Doris is doing the suing. The same principles pertain, though.
Now, frankly, if the facts are as presented (and I suspect we’re hearing here mainly Doris’ side of things), I don’t think either Sarah and Jasmine have much ethical standing in the argument.
But legally, aside from taking out the underage Sarah for drinks, how much responsibility does Jasmine have to live up to a verbal agreement to be a designated driver? And is that responsibility just to Sarah, or to anyone that Sarah might harm?
Because the thing is, once we make that commitment to be a legally binding contract, it makes the whole designated driver thing a lot more problematic, both in cases like this and in others.
Let’s say I’m going out with friends, and I agree to be the designated driver. Then, while we’re eating, I say, “Hell with it, I’m going to have a glass of wine.” Nobody objects. Then, on the way home (and after more than a single glass), I get us in an accident.
Can I be sued for being a bad designated driver?
If they knew I was drinking and didn’t object, did we all agree to void the contract?
If Bob egged me on to have “just one drink,” does he lose his standing to sue me for his injuries?
What if I get separated from the others, look around for a while, and then go home — and they get into an accident. Am I still liable?
Given that I know they’ve been drinking, I know their capacity for judgment is diminished — to what degree have I placed myself as their guardian, responsible for what they do?
Yeah, in terms of what’s right and wrong, it’s a lot clearer. But in terms of what we want to make legal and tortious … I’m not so sure.
Because what the end result may be is nobody agreeing to be a designated driver, just in case they later change their mind or circumstances change. And that would be a shame, because the designated driver concept is one that’s been a real boon, I think.
Here’s a fascinating look … or listen … at the “Wilhelm,” a sound effect of a screaming man that’s been used … well, in more movies than you can imagine….
Here’s a fascinating look … or listen … at the “Wilhelm,” a sound effect of a screaming man that’s been used … well, in more movies than you can imagine.
It’s the Easter Egg/Hidden Mickey of the sound effect world. Cool.
(via Solonor)
So Joe Straczynski, the certifiable genius of a writer/producer, has been working on a new project proposal for the SciFi Channel called “Polaris.” Sounds like a slam-dunk, right? I mean,…
So Joe Straczynski, the certifiable genius of a writer/producer, has been working on a new project proposal for the SciFi Channel called “Polaris.” Sounds like a slam-dunk, right? I mean, how could they possibly turn down an opportunity from the creator of Babylon 5?
With the patented SciFi Channel stupidity, apparently.
On Polaris…we got down to one of three projects of which one or two would be greenlighted for production. It went down to the wire, but finally SFC decided that the premise of Polaris was a little too science fictiony, when they were looking to go for ideas that had more immediate mainstream appeal. So even though they felt that Polaris was the best written of the projects they had in development, they went for a project about intergalactic (not interstellar, intergalactic) vampires called “Bloodsuckers.” It is, to be fair, one of those concepts that, when you hear it, you get it, there isn’t a lot of background needed.
Yeah. Can’t have any of that “science fictiony” stuff on the SciFi Channel, can we? I mean, that’s the real reason we dropped Farscape. We need to go for that mainstream stuff, like all the other “intergalactic vampire” shows out there.
Intergalactic vampires. Yeah, that’ll rock the world.
As Bugs used to say, “Whadda buncha maroons.”
So we’re going to Britain in February. The plan started out when the Testerfolk and we were considering bidding together on a condo weekend vacation deal at a fund-raiser being…
So we’re going to Britain in February.
The plan started out when the Testerfolk and we were considering bidding together on a condo weekend vacation deal at a fund-raiser being held at Margie and my church. At some point, someone (Jackie, perhaps) noted that for the dollars we were discussing, we could fly to England.
Well … yeah.
So we decided to do that. And then Dave & Lori got tied into the idea.
So off we go, the six of us, for a dozen days to England (London, mostly) and Wales (the south thereof), and whatever places in-between and surrounding we might encounter.
Plans are slowly gelling. Jackie found a good in-town B&B a block or two from Victoria Stn. We’re all tied in there for the first four or five days. Margie put together a list of places in Wales for the group to decide on, so we should be all set there, too.
The other four are flying direct from Denver to Gatwick. We, on the other hand, are taking a short side-jaunt to LA to hand-off Kitten to the grandparents (who, last week were figuring out how to timeshare her), and then flying direct from there to Heathrow. We’ll meet at the B&B.
Two cars are being rented for the extra-London leg of the journey, which should provide the flexibility for different configurations of groups to go off touring whatever it is they want, be it stone circles or Victorian gardens or comic book shops or ruined abbeys or Girls Night Out or …
I’m not daunted by driving in the UK. I’ve found on past visits it’s really not all that difficult, if you keep your mind to it (and have someone in the passenger seat to man the map).
I am a bit daunted about being pretty much completely off-line during that time. Haven’t quite figured out how I’m journaling this trip. Last time it was via post cards sent home. This time … if it’s just journaling, I may use my Palm. I’m not planning, at the moment, to bring my computer.
I’m concerned, of course, by the timing. In mid-February, the US (and Britain) may be at war in Iraq. That would certainly add an extra frisson of interesting times (in the Chinese sense) to the trip. But at the moment, I don’t expect it to actually interfere.
I do have worries about … well, I watched I Love Lucy as a kid way too much. And, inevitably, whenver the Ricardos and Mertzes would undertake a joint venture, whether it was a business or a vacation, inevitably there would be frictions that threatened their friendships. And I really don’t want to see that happen here with our friends. I don’t want tensions about where we’re going, or eating, or staying, or doing (be it some folks pressing an itinerary that the others don’t share, or nobody being willing to suggest anything) to make the trip unpleasant. Heck, I know that sometimes Margie and I clash on such things — throw in four additional personalities, and my Apprehensometer goes ping-ping-ping.
I know I’m being paranoid about such things. That’s my nature.
Hmmmm. It could make for a fun Reality Show, though. Think we could arrange for sponsors at this late date?
Paranoia and apprehension and concerns aside … I’m getting excited. It’s actually going to be a hell of a lot of fun.
Now for the big question: how many cameras do I bring?
Shoot me now. (via Andrea)…
I think it would be really cool to have a fake Easter Island head in my back yard. On the other hand, if the ones being sold in Miami are…
