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Archive for August, 2008

An Exploration of Police Raids Around the RNC

15:13 31 Aug 2008. Updated: 23:56 21 Jul 2009

In Minneapolis/St. Paul, there’s been plenty of democracy suppression over the last few days, with various police forces raiding homes and gathering points of groups planning to protest the Republican National Convention. Glenn Greenwald covers the bases here, and also has a follow-up about Federal involvement.

As pointed out in a letter to Glenn, this isn’t new by any means (nor, I suspect, is it restricted to the Republican convention—I’d be rather surprised if the same stuff didn’t happen around the DNC). It also goes back a lot further than the letter-writer suggests (they cite 2000 as the starting point).
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Impressions of The Dark Knight

23:36 29 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:54 28 Jan 2009

I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight this evening. I had mixed feelings about Batman Begins—I loved the first half of it and hated the second half. The Dark Knight was different: the parts I hated and the parts I loved were mixed together throughout the film.
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It’s Not Censorship, Of Course

19:42 28 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:54 28 Jan 2009

This story about CBS Outdoor refusing art billboards in Minneapolis/St. Paul is quite illustrative of how tightly the public sphere is controlled in this country. CBS worries, essentially, about offending some powerful Republican patrons—at least, that’s my guess, it might not even get to that level of conscious thought.
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Perfect Pac-Man?

22:18 26 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:55 28 Jan 2009

This was on Boing Boing, but I think it’s a good enough article that it’s worth posting anyway. Writer Joshuah Bearman has posted a PDF of his Harper’s article about Pac-Man and classic arcade game mastery. It’s well-written and compelling, and of course the fact that people still play those games so compulsively decades after their heyday is fascinating.

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US Military Boondoggles

20:28 25 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:55 28 Jan 2009

The United States outspends the next five or ten countries on the list combined when it comes to military spending. However, I’ve always been sceptical about translating this into actual military power, because it seems that tremendous amounts of waste clearly go on… even if other countries waste a percentage of their own military budgets on boondoggles and industrial subsidies, I suspect that the US is even worse due to the huge amount of money concerned.
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Obama/Biden

23:59 24 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:55 28 Jan 2009

When I hear the name Joe Biden, I don’t have good impressions. I think of a long-term Democrat who’s thoroughly absorbed into the party machine, and into the ruling machine. For the detail work, though, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Jonathan Schwarz, Dennis Perrin, and Radley Balko (who I don’t read regularly, but whose commentary on Biden and the “Drug War” seems solid).

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On Cindy McCain

19:54 22 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:55 28 Jan 2009

The New Republic has an interesting article on how John McCain, as a political creature, emerged—essentially, he married his political ambitions to those of his second wife’s family. There aren’t huge shockers about Cindy McCain in the article (it’s not like the piece Vanity Fair did on Judi Giuliani), but as a background piece on McCain and people like him, it’s quite good.

In addition, Glenn Greenwald does the necessary work on contrasting how right-wing commentators treat some men who marry into wealth differently from others.

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Billmon on Georgia

19:20 21 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:53 28 Jan 2009

I’m glad to see that billmon is blogging again, after a long hiatus. I recommend his most recent article, Anatomy of A(nother) Fiasco, an overview of recent American responses to the strife between Russia and Georgia.
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Freebase: Films Adapted from Books in the Last Decade

21:37 19 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:56 28 Jan 2009

I’m usually pleased when I stumble across questions that it seems can only be answered by Freebase or a lot of work—even though I don’t see Freebase as being primarily for casual searching/browsing in the way that Wikipedia is, it’s always nice when I come up with a casual question (one that might come up in conversation, say) that suits the site very well.
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Federer Loses Number One Ranking to Nadal

17:31 18 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:56 28 Jan 2009

Roger Federer is no longer the world number one. Rafael Nadal took the number one ranking today after being in the number two spot for longer than anyone else in history. Nadal’s ascension was guaranteed at least two weeks ago, thanks to poor recent results from Federer, some quirks in the ranking system, and Nadal’s continued fantastic form.

Federer was the world number one for longer, consecutively, than anyone before him: 237 weeks, from 2 Feb 2004 until 17 Aug 2008. The previous men’s record was 160 (Jimmy Connors), more than a year shorter than Federer. Steffi Graf had a record of 186 consecutive weeks at number one, just under a year shorter than Federer.
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Pedantor

15:27 17 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:56 28 Jan 2009

(The irony of analyzing a web comic mocking pedants is not lost upon me.)

This Wondermark strip strikes me as funny in theory: set up the provocation of the language nerd, show the language nerd’s newfound determined tolerance, and then show him being overwhelmed by the deliberate transgression that’s just too much. I did find it funny, but this was offset somewhat by the fact that the final “transgression” isn’t one that gets me at all (whereas all of the prior provocations would). I’m not sure I really count as a “language nerd”, but I definitely wince at some of what they provoke him with (notably “irregardless” (sic)). So why did the final offense in this strip not bother me at all—and while I’m at it, why do the others bother me in the first place?
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We’re Not Live, Right?

19:40 15 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:58 28 Jan 2009

Sayeth McCain:

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VMware Fusion

19:47 14 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:58 28 Jan 2009

I had to find a quick and reliable way to test IE7 on my MacBook Pro this week, and so ended up using VMware Fusion. Various people at work recommended it over Parallels.
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NYPD Fighting the Last War?

19:15 12 Aug 2008. Updated: 18:00 28 Jan 2009

In light of their somewhat zealous security plan for the new development at the World Trade Center site, one could accuse the NYPD of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. After all, the towers are already gone, is heavy security now going to make much difference? Is the new development really the most strategically important location in New York City? (Apart from the stock exchange, which gets the heavy duty security treatment as well.) On the other hand, you could also point out that the proposed security measures aren’t fighting the last war at all, since they won’t do anything against planes.
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Rainbows End, the Hugo, and Blindsight

03:52 11 Aug 2008. Updated: 17:19 28 Feb 2009

Vernor Vinge has written some excellent science fiction works, such as True Names and A Fire Upon the Deep. I thought the latter was well-plotted, had interesting characters, and had some truly fascinating technological ideas.
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Cultural Discontinuity in Northern England

14:20 10 Aug 2008. Updated: 12:31 31 Mar 2009

Over the weekend I was in York for the absolutely wonderful and joyous occasion of Helen and Mary’s civil partnership ceremony. I’d never been to York, or indeed the north of England, before. England is a place I haven’t been to much at all—one three-day weekend in London about a decade ago, plus lots of trips through Heathrow, and that’s more or less it. Being there this time brought a certain amount of cultural disorientation with it.
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Batman To The Rescue

20:45 08 Aug 2008. Updated: 18:03 28 Jan 2009

I just can’t resist linking to Glenn Beck lauding The Dark Knight as a film vindicating Bush’s policies. Somehow I missed Andrew Klavan doing the same in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago… and reading it now simply makes my head hurt.
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Viriconium

23:57 07 Aug 2008. Updated: 18:03 28 Jan 2009

I read M. John Harrison’s Viriconium series recently, and was impressed on a number of levels. The atmosphere of completely pervasive decay that he creates is quite effective, and I suspect that the series was extremely influential. I think that Mieville’s New Crobuzon would have had a hard time struggling into existence without Viriconium preceding it, and I also suspect that Harrison had a big impact on Gene Wolfe.
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Superhero Critiques

11:31 05 Aug 2008. Updated: 18:04 28 Jan 2009

I haven’t seen The Dark Knight yet. I intend to see it, although my feeling about Batman Begins was that the first half was excellent and the second half execrable. I hope the second movie doesn’t continue the downward trend. I also have my doubts about the presence of Harvey Dent—I’ve never found that character compelling or believable, even in The Dark Knight Returns.

“I don’t believe in Harvey Dent” is a pretty good critique/rant about the recent superhero movies, including The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man. John Pistelli also covers The Dark Knight, and Hellboy II (which I also intend to see).
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Greenwald on the Anthrax Attacks

18:26 04 Aug 2008. Updated: 18:04 28 Jan 2009

I don’t know how much the media has been covering the recent developments in the 2001 anthrax attacks, but I suspect they’re not doing much coverage of their own role—just as with the “weapons of mass destruction” story, or maybe even worse, they were a conduit for what the government wasn’t willing to come out and assert: the link with Iraq.

Glenn Greenwald has been doing a good job covering it.

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Oh, That’s Okay Then

14:34 03 Aug 2008. Updated: 12:37 15 Mar 2009

The West is still quite awful about gender equality in many ways, but it seems that post-Soviet Russia is far, far worse. A 22-year-old St. Petersburg executive had her sexual harassment case thrown out because, according to the judge, “[i]f we had no sexual harassment we would have no children”.
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Occupied Areas Are Known For Their Stability

23:35 01 Aug 2008. Updated: 18:05 28 Jan 2009

…And that’s why John McCain is proposing military occupation of crime-afflicted neighborhoods. In the United States.

(Sadly, though, I wouldn’t be too surprised to hear Obama propose something similar a year or two from now…)

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