Can a science-fiction movie infringe a tech patent? “Imagine if NASA sued Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey claiming dominion over space travel.”
Not quite that, but still crazy…
Updates from December, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Jehuda
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Jehuda
It’s been a tough week at the show. I just have too much writing to complete in short order. I’m afraid blogging will suffer as a result…
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Jehuda
Wired has a list.
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Jehuda
An animated map of unemployment rates in the U.S. since 2007. There’s no hiding this decline!
More proof that the Stimulus didn’t do diddly squat…
(Via BoingBoing)
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll links with related content. Thanks!
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Jehuda
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Jehuda
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Jehuda
…as Afghanistan is to Vietnam?
If the war is about creating an Afghan army, and if we accept that the Taliban will penetrate this army heavily no matter what, then the only counter is to penetrate the Taliban equally. Without that, Obama’s entire strategy fails as Nixon’s did.
Another great analysis from STRATFOR. Give it a read.
Let’s just hope for a very different conclusion this time around, but with the substance of Obama’s strategy being what it is (we’ll give up just before he seeks re-election), I don’t know…
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Jehuda
No permanent victories in politicized pseudoscience?
Jon Stewart mocks Al Gore over Climategate:
Via Parcbench.
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Jehuda
Obama announces the day America will stop fighting.
Way to go, POTUS. If surrender is the endgame, why not leave Afghanistan now? It would spare our brave fighting men and women much sacrifice. Maybe Obama in fact sees them as enemies, after all.
Related: “Ok, you win in 2011.”
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Jehuda
BigHollywood: Clooney Shines!
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Jehuda
Shake hands with a sci-fi movie star for…$1209.
John Edwards, I know what you’re thinking. Opening a kissing booth at a big lawyer confab is a bad idea. Don’t do it.
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Jehuda
Obama’s Afghanistan announcement to pre-empt Charlie Brown Christmas.
The real outrage is that Obama has to make a television event out of a decision that he should have made months ago.
Just do it. Don’t announce. Don’t preen. Don’t posture. It’s not about you, POTUS. Besides, isn’t it enough that we already have to endure an Obama/Oprah Christmas Special?
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Jehuda
For electing a new, conservative president.
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Jehuda
Much has been written about Obama’s rise to power. To a certain extent, the history of how an inexperienced unknown came to inhabit the Oval Office on a promise of “hope” and “change” can be told in a number of ways. To some, Obama’s inauguration was the day that they confirmed that, yes, they could. But to many more it turned out to be a day of broken promises.
One would expect that, as the one-year anniversary of Obama’s inaugural draws near, Obama’s apologists would offer apologias. However, rather than make excuses for Obama’s rocky start, they’re pre-empting having to defend Obama at all. A year of failures? What in the world are you talking about?
Take New York magazine, where John Heileman makes us aware of the following:
Obama has brought to bear great aplomb and fortitude, and his achievements have been considerable. Together with his team and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, he has helped prevent the economy from tumbling into the abyss. He has changed the tone of America’s relationships abroad and begun the restoration of the country’s global standing.
Does Heileman have a pocket flux capacitor? Because the paragraph above neither describes the past nor the present. The economy is in the abyss. And if our country’s global standing has been restored, it’s probably been restored to where it was in 1979. Ask any of Iran’s neighbors. They know. Or better yet, ask any American soldier in Afghanistan. They used to know why they were there. Not anymore. While you’re at it, ask Poland about the new tone of our relationships abroad. Aplomb and fortitude? I presume this isn’t about the courage Obama displayed on the day the Iranian election riots started.
Heileman’s piece may revise history; but leave it to Slate’s leading fantasist Jacob Weisberg to attempt to re-weave the fabric of reality. Weisberg asked himself “How do you solve a problem like Barack?” and concluded he had to relocate Obama to Bizarro World.
Obama’s first-year failures are many, and they will probably make his second year harder than it would be otherwise; but a big factor in all of them is that he was designed, packaged, and marketed by a supine press – much like the one to which Heileman and Weisberg belong – to better sell a less than adequate candidate to a gullible electorate.
That all this political marketeerism was never rooted in reality has been evident since before Obama was elected president. But the current Obama pre-habilitation campaign is different. It’s a meta-Orwellian effort to spin positively a bunch of disappointments that never happened because everything Obama does exudes excellence. Which doesn’t explain why the spin is needed in the first place.
It’s all so damn ridiculous that it’s probably shortened the lifespan of “journalism” schools nationwide by at least several decades. And that’s probably a good thing. The world can’t wait.
