"I see stupid strikes, and I see less stupid strikes. I see smart strikes," Eisner said in the keynote, which was structured as a conversation with Neil P. Cavuto, senior vice president and managing editor of Fox Business News. "This is a stupid strike."

Um. Yeah, good call Eisner. Idiot.

Eisner, a well-known critic of Apple (whose CEO, Steve Jobs, is a powerful member of Disney's board of directors), suggested that the profits may be getting sucked up elsewhere. The studios "make deals with Steve Jobs, who takes them to the cleaners. They make all these kinds of things, and who's making money? Apple! They should get a piece of Apple. If I was a union, I'd be striking up wherever he is."

Apple's taking who to what cleaners? Is he on fucking crack?

Eisner's advice to striking writers: Blame Steve Jobs, not the studios | The Social - CNET News.com

As a practical matter, there will always be a trade-off of sorts between citizen liberties and the powers a state needs to fight certain threats. Yet it is the paramount duty of any liberal democracy not only to protect the rights associated with a decent political order, but also to protect the lives of its citizens.

A fairly interesting article, I thought, with a clear purpose. There's no doubt that the French legal system is extremely different from our own, and counter-terrorism is another area in which it's not surprising to see a powerful, centralized system in place there. Some valid points are made about the fact that France is a highly functional, modern Democratic State, despite (or perhaps because of) it's highly centralized power structure. I'm not at all sure one can conclude that any of France's techniques or mechanisms can be imported, in general. I think a detailed study of each minute part would be required. Nonetheless, there's nothing wrong with being up on what everyone else is doing, especially, as the authors say, if it's working.

Beyond that, though, I want to briefly address the quote above, because I think it too swiftly passes over a crucial issue in this debate. The authors say "it is the paramount duty" -- singular -- "not only to protect the rights associated with a decent political order, but also to protect the lives of its citizens," -- plural!

This, I think, is the very crux of the matter. I don't deny that death ultimately deprives a person of his rights... that's obvious. But the issue really comes down to which of those TWO duties mentioned is, in fact, PARAMOUNT. Only one can be *most* important. It's disingenuous to conflate or gloss over them in the way the final conclusion of this article does.

Is it, in fact, more important to protect citizen rights, which affect everyone, at all times, or to absolutely minimize the chances of death, which affect specific people at a specific place in time (though I admit that we are all connected in certain meaningful ways). To the extent that we must choose one over the other, we must decide which comes out on top.

My phrasing above clearly indicates my own bias on the issue, of course, but I think it's important to point out that we should be clear in addressing which of these two concerns is in fact most important to us. To do otherwise almost completely misses the point.

RE: France: Europe's Counterterrorist Powerhouse

I'm torn. It looks generic and kinda lame, but James McAvoy is pretty awesome, and the end of this trailer shows a scene that looks a touch like Gun Kata, which we know is cool as hell.

Wanted trailer

Akezys says: "Recently police at the Vancouver airport were attempting to question a recent immigrant that could not speak English. They tasered him after 24 seconds of speaking with him. The man had spent 10 hours stuck in the airport with no-one helping him."

Awesome! TASER is totally safe! Immigrants can fuck off and die!

Taser death at Vancouver Airport - Boing Boing

Those YouTube debates are such a waste of time; just move everything to HotOrNot ...

People asked to rate the competence of an individual based on a quick glance at a photo predicted the outcome of elections more than two-thirds of the time.

Nearly 300 students were asked to look at pairs of photographs for as little as one-tenth of a second and pick the individual they felt was more competent.

The participants were shown photos of leading candidates for governor or senator in other parts of the country, but they were not told they were evaluating candidates. Those who recognized any of the photos were not counted.

When the elections took place two weeks later, the researchers found that the competency snap judgments predicted the winners in 72.4 percent of the senatorial races and 68.6 percent of the gubernatorial races.

A false correlation or proof that for most people voting really is a popularity contest?

Predicting political elections from rapid and unreflective face judgments

The little girl from 28 Days Later has a goth-pop band.

It's, uh, ok. Poppy.

Random Link of the Day - Betty curse - Do you mind (if I cry?)

2. The London Brew-nami of 1814

The Industrial Revolution wasn't all steam engines and textile mills. Beer production increased exponentially, as well. Fortunately, the good people of England were up to the challenge and drained kegs as fast as they were made. Brewery owners became known as "beer barons," and they spent their newfound wealth in an age-old manner -- by trying to party more than the next guy.

Case in point: In 1814, Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery in London constructed a brewing vat that was 22 feet tall and 60 feet in diameter, with an interior big enough to seat 200 for dinner -- which is exactly how its completion was celebrated. (Why 200? Because a rival had built a vat that seated 100, of course.)

After the dinner, the vat was filled to its 4,000-barrel capacity. Pretty impressive, given the grand scale of the project, but pretty unfortunate given that they overlooked a faulty supporting hoop. Yup, the vat ruptured, causing other vats to break, and the resulting commotion was heard up to 5 miles away.

A wall of 1.3 million gallons of dark beer washed down the street, caving in two buildings and killing nine people by means of "drowning, injury, poisoning by the porter fumes, or drunkenness."

The story gets even more unbelievable, though. Rescue attempts were blocked and delayed by the thousands who flocked to the area to drink directly off the road. And when survivors were finally brought to the hospital, the other patients became convinced from the smell that the hospital was serving beer to every ward except theirs. A riot broke out, and even more people were left injured.

Sadly, this incident was not deemed tragic enough at the time to merit an annual memorial service and/or reenactment.

Hah! I've gotten Lyme Disease from post drunken carelessness, but riots in the streets are whole other level.

Drinking Stories That Put Yours To Shame

You can actually program in this. Best programming language since OOK.

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

I thought I'd memed this a while back... yeah, it's actually sort of functional. Ridiculous, but functional. People have the craziest hobbies... "I think I'll write a parser for a language based on all this LOLCATS stuff!"

home � LOLCODE

Just ran across this...

Any chance it makes the baby jesus' crying less acute?

SAJA - Secure AJAX for PHP

Decius wrote:
Ooooo... You took the midday flight... Its best to leave the western US as late in the day as possible so you arrive in Asia in the morning after sleeping on the plane. Remove all reminders of Atlanta time and think in your local timezone.

I'll be in this boat in a few weeks... Our flight leaves San Fran at like 11 am. I haven't really figured out what I'm gonna do with the sleeping. I might end up out in Osaka looking for Ramen or Takoyaki around our hotel at like 4 am.

RE: 14 Hours on a plane