Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
- High School Students Vote On Saying a Graduation Prayer; Judge Says No – Would it be “okay” if the student body voted on whether to segregate classes by race, or religion? No? Well, not much different here. Majority rule doesn’t trump minority rights — that’s what the First Amendment (and, fundamentally, the Constitution) is all about.
- The Son Needed Blood, So What Did the Father Do? – I’m trying to think of an exception to the rule that “A religion that requires a child die rather than violate some element of dogma is not a religion I care to follow,” but I can’t think of one.
- The Station That Censors Muhammad May Give Jesus His Own Show – I think there’s a lot of room for a very funny story about a modern-day “Christ in the City.” I suspect this won’t be it, but I’ll add to the predictions given here that there will, in fact, be some violent threats by anonymous (and humor-dead) Christians about the show, along the lines of, “If it worked for radical Islamicists …”
- Titanic 2 Is Coming Soon | /Film – OMG — it’s like those cheap knock-off cartoons of Disney flicks that you can find at the grocery store. (Or, alternately, the pr0n adaptations of prominent movie titles.) The list of previous releases by the studio is, itself, a hoot. (Note to SyFy — you really need to get these guys on your payroll, if you don’t already.)
- Iron Man 2 Review: Downey and Rockwell Power Through a Tangled Tale – This lines up with several reviews I’ve heard to date — weaker story than the first ep, but enough fun to carry through regardless. Whew. Still on my List of Things to See.
- DVR Didn’t Kill The Commercial Star, Says Duke U. – I think the points given are fair enough — though since we got the “skip 30 seconds” button programmed on the remote, that does reduce some of the commercial bits. At most, though, it makes the first and last commercial slots in a break the most valuable, as they are the most likely to be viewed (which, I think, has always been true).
- Radio Shack answering machine messages – WFMU’s Beware of the Blog – These are pretty darned awesome. It occurs to me, as more folks go to hosted voice-mail and as answering machines have become cliche, that there’s very little ingenuity among answering machine messages any more. When’s the last time you got one that made you chuckle (and, as a subset of that, wasn’t annoying long)?
- 7 things people get wrong about the Internet and TV – OMG … the TV industry might be actually smarter than we thought …
- Yet another Facebook privacy risk: emails Facebook sends leak user IP address – This one’s a case of bad design, not intentional aggregating of data to be used commercially.
- FCC gives Hollywood control over your home theater – There are some protections here, but it is largely a victory for Big Media over consumers (especially early adoptors).
- GOP Denies That Attack Ad On Ohio Lt. Gov. Implies He’s Masturbating. You Decide – Crikey — that’s a new low. (The video and more on the story are available thru the Mediaite link in the post.)
- Microsoft shows off new tech: real-time translation and social networking ‘Spindex’ – Interesting — but I’m pretty sure that second-to-last folks I want organizing/aggregating my social networking is Microsoft.
- I Think We’re LOST – I am SO glad I never got into this show …
- 5 Cheap Magic Tricks Behind Every Psychic | Cracked.com – Patrick Jane would be proud (and also point out that having a good grounding in confidence tricks and “hedge psychology” would also be highly valuable).
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