Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney’s op-ed piece on net neutrality, No Tolls on The Internet, is making the rounds. But for some reason, every time I look at the title, I keep misreading it as “No Trolls on The Internet.”
I guess the internet/troll combination is just too ingrained in my brain…
The Orange County Register has an ad campaign going in which people stand around on street corners holding banners with controversial topics printed on them. The latest is, “Is Bush abusing executive power?”
Given that the Register is known to have a conservative bias (you can often guess a person’s political affiliation from whether they read the Register or the Los Angeles Times), chances are that their answer is “No.” However, it’s undisputed that Bush has been expanding executive power over the past six years.
The trick with expanded power is that people often don’t object when the person wielding it is someone with whom they agree. Even if you think it’s OK for President Bush to insist on greater powers, eventually, someone you don’t like will be in the Oval Office. Even if the Democratic party implodes, there are different factions in the Republican party, and chances are either the Republicans would split, or another party would rise to fill the gap. And if no one did… well, a one-party system isn’t much of a democracy, is it?
So whether it’s 2 years from now, 6 years, or 10 years, someone you disagree with will end up with all the powers Bush has pushed for. If there’s anything you don’t want that President to have…are you sure you want the current President to have it?
Despite growing up in Orange County, I never managed to go to Medieval Times. It’s a dinner show with knights on horseback staging a medieval tournament. Last month in Las Vegas, Katie talked me into going to the Tournament of Kings at Excalibur, which is the same type of show.
![[Knight from Excalibur'sTournament of Kings]](https://hyperborea.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/knight.jpg)
When you purchase your tickets, you’re assigned a country. (We got Hungary, which seemed appropriate for a dinner show.) This determines two things: your seating area, and which knight you’ll cheer for. People got really into it, cheering on their own knights, booing others, all from a random assignment. About halfway through the show, I realized it was a Drazi scarf situation.
To explain: The Babylon 5 episode, “The Geometry of Shadows” features a conflict among an alien race called the Drazi. Two factions have been fighting each other on the station, and the crew wants them to stop. The Drazi ambassador explains that every few years, they put a bunch of green and purple scarves in a barrel. Each Drazi reaches into the barrel and pulls out a scarf. Green Drazi form one faction, Purple Drazi form the other, and they fight until one side wins, becoming the dominant political force for the next few years.
The episode was clearly meant as commentary on politics, but here in the dinner tournament was an actual case where nothing but random chance determined allegiance. It wasn’t even a random draw for a team, this was just the cheering section! For a scripted show!
![[Pirate]](https://hyperborea.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/pirate.jpg)
Last weekend we went to the Pirate’s Dinner Adventure for Katie’s birthday. It’s a similar setup, only with pirates instead of knights, a smaller arena so that you can actually see the actor/stuntmen’s faces, and a more interactive setup. (There are contests where they get willing audience members to participate, kids get to be sworn in as members of the pirate crew, etc.) Again, you’re assigned a color when you get your ticket, and that color corresponds to one of the pirates. And everyone gets a colored headband. Not too different from those Drazi scarves.
There are certain ideas that I find completely acceptable in the context of science-fiction, but completely looney in the context of actual science.
Take, for instance, Erich von Däniken’s premise that gods were really ancient alien astronauts. It’s an interesting idea, but it’s way out there in terms of science. It assumes that (a) myths are historically accurate, (b) aliens exist, and (c) low-tech humans couldn’t possibly have created things like Stonehenge, pyramids, giant stone heads, etc. Not to say it’s not possible that aliens visited the planet in the distant past—just that comparative mythology and architecture aren’t exactly compelling evidence.
On the other hand, I have no problem with the concept in science-fiction. It’s the basic premise of Stargate. The movie and early seasons of SG-1 focused on Egyptian mythology and technology, and in subsequent seasons of the show, just about every ancient legend has turned out to have an alien race behind it. It also figures into the backstory of Babylon 5, with the Vorlons having visited nearly every known race in ancient times, insinuating themselves into local religions and engineering telepaths over the course of centuries.
(via Sclerotic Rings and *** Dave)
Just saw Snopes’ post on Ben Stein’s commentary on the Oscars and the politics of Hollywood, including this rather disingenuous statement:
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else.
Sure, he’s talking about Hollywood specifically, but it’s the kind of “You’re not really American” rhetoric we see a lot in political polemic.
Has it occurred to people on the right that us “lefties” (which seems to mean anyone who is less conservative than President Bush) do think that fighting terrorism is a good thing, but that our nation is currently going about it the wrong way? That maybe invading Iraq wasn’t the best way to curtail global terrorism? That it might be possible to spy on terrorists without bypassing that Constitutionally-guaranteed “due process of law” in a way that sets precedent for warrantless spying on citizens who aren’t terrorists?
We don’t hate America, but we’re not particularly thrilled about some of the things our government has been doing lately.
I do agree that the Academy Awards are pointless in the grand scheme of things, but I’m sick and tired of the false dilemmas rampant in what passes for political discourse these days.
Here’s something I just don’t understand about the whole electronic eavesdropping controversy.
Given that FISA warrants are:
Why is it necessary to eavesdrop without one? What’s so hard about getting a warrant?
While we’re at it, given that the bad guys almost certainly knew we were spying on them as much as we could already, what’s so dangerous about revealing the warrantless spying program?
Instead of these endless self-justifications, it would be nice to see President Bush or Attorney General Gonzales say, “You’re right, we should have gotten warrants. From now on, we will.” End of story. Instead of digging in their heels and insisting on powers that should scare the hell out of anyone, no matter what their party affiliation.
The BBC has posted an interesting article on the US Military’s plans for Internet operations. But that’s not what I want to write about here. What I want to write about is this accompanying photo of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
The article mentions that messages put out for psychological operations in foreign markets are making their way back to American audiences. I’m not sure this photo qualifies as PsyOps, but I think it does qualify for a caption contest.*
Please post your suggestions in the comments.
*OK, you won’t win anything, but with luck the other entries will make you laugh.
