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Monday, June 17, 2002 |
Political Correctness on Campus
Graduating students threatened with arrest for silently protesting Bush's grad speech. Ohio State students who protested Shrub's presence at their graduation by silently turning their backs to the stage were led out of the auditorium by the police, who told them that they would be charged with disturbing the peace if they didn't leave the premises. Earlier, they had been threatened with arrest and withholding of their diplomas if they engaged in their First Amendment protected right to silently protest the President's policy. (For contrast, Clinton's presence at an Ohio State grad ceremony enjoyed no such protection -- he was heckled and jeered and simply toughed it out like a grownup). Link Discuss (via Ambiguous) [bOing bOing]
This sickens me. The same crowd that is always condeming the culture of "political correctness" at Universities brings real power to bear to stamp out peaceful protests.
7:35:52 PM Permalink
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Lawrence Lessig Interview
Reason interviews Lawrence Lessig. This is one smart guy; I have both his books around but haven't read them. After this interview I see I need to correct that.
If you’re a lawyer, it’s OK to think of intellectual property as property, because we’re trained to use the word property in a careful way. We don’t think of it as an absolute, perpetual right that can’t be trumped by anybody. We understand property rights are constantly limited by public-use exceptions and needs, and in that context we understand intellectual property to be a very particular, peculiar kind of property .. the only property constitutionally required to be for limited terms. It’s clearly established for a public purpose and is not a natural right.
The real problem is when people use it in the ordinary sense of the term property, which is "a thing that I have that nobody can take, forever, unless I give it to you." By thinking of it as property, we have no resistance to the idea of certain great companies controlling "their" intellectual property forever. But if we instead use terms like monopoly to describe the control that companies like Disney have over art objects like Mickey Mouse, it’s harder to run naturally to the idea that you ought to have your monopoly right forever.
Another problem is the increasing ability of owners of intellectual property to control the actual use of that property. Before the network, if you bought a book, the First Sale doctrine made it impossible for the copyright owner to control what you did with it. Copyright law would not interfere with my ability to give you the book or copy a chapter or read the book a thousand times. All those things are completely within my control, partly because the law guarantees it, but also because the book producer couldn’t do anything about it even if he wanted.
7:31:36 PM Permalink
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15 Counterpoints to Creationist Cretinist Nonsense
. Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense [GoodShit]
Highly recommended. Even if you're a moderately literate in science, it's good to read through these lucid counterpoints to 15 creationist bugaboos. Alas, now they'll need to add a 16th that explains why the theory of evolution doesn't fall apart because of flaws in the explanation of the coloration of the moths in London.
5:46:10 PM Permalink
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Salon on the Charlatans, Part II
Dang, but in my tirade against Salon's piece on John Edwards the other day, I missed their balanced coverage of the issue. In this article, Shari Waxman presents a much more believable picture of what Edwards does:
Lucky for Edward, most audience members on his television show are too hopeful and trusting to pull out a calculator and expose the charlatan behind the prophet.
The temptation to believe that Edward, a self-professed medium, can connect with the deceased and foretell future events is great, especially for those who are vulnerable and in need of comforting. Many members of the show's audience, hoping to connect with deceased loved ones via Edward, are mourning recent losses. They come with the expectation, no doubt, that being "read" by Edward on national television will yield healing revelations from those who have "crossed over." Inevitably he reports that the dead are at peace, happily and lovingly watching over those left behind on Earth.
...[E]ach audience member becomes, in effect, a throw of the die, and each of Edward's guesses is the number he's trying to roll. Symbolically translated, where P = probability: P(Aunt Mary comes through) + P(Grandma's first poodle comes through) + P(Jen's ex-brother-in-law comes through) + P(a person who will eventually die comes through prematurely) + P(an unknown ancestor comes through) + P(Edward can talk himself out of anything) = Damn close to 100 percent.
Well, egg on my face.
2:24:21 PM Permalink
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Classical Music Archives
I'm sorry I haven't seen this site before. It has a huge library of MIDI, MP3, WMP, etc. files covering the full range of classical music. I find the design a little busy and confusing, but the content -- the music -- is just fantastic. A terrific resource.
8:47:44 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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