(It's OK for an owner to say that. I just wish the players would focus more on hoops ... because playing ball with real skills is entertainment. And none of this Bob-Sura-pad-my-stats BS! Bring on the playoffs, where, hopefully they will play the game like it's meant. )

« 1:03:29 PM »    

(...so you can whitewash it. As always, thoughtful, surgical bloggage from Silver Rights chipping away at the carapace of half-truths that encase American history. It seems to me movies like the The Alamo (2004) are modern revisions that, in a country on a war footing with "alien" peoples from "other" lands, cock indelible propaganda triggers which are deeply rooted in bias and stereotype: Remember the Alamo, brave, noble men of the west! We were outnumbered, but we never gave up! We fought to the bitter end! How can a movie like this not be propaganda? Do war movies really get made so that the target audiences can enjoy themselves, by basking in two hours or more of blood-splattering? (OK, blood-splattering in a flick like "Dawn of the Dead" may be acceptable as a cinematic entertainment, but hell, it was only 90 minutes long.) As it seems more of the world is beginning to question the country's prevailing military excursions, certain people need to be reminded: fight or risk being surrounded on every side by marauding aliens bent on taking your land and squeezing it dry (can you say Halliburton and Iraq 10 times fast?) ... remember the Alamo ... but just the part about what the western guys did, because they're the only ones who are -- and ever could be -- heroic. Thumbs ... down. )

« 2:31:29 AM »    

(Zoe is definitely worth a look, especially if you're someone into checking out stats for your blog ... this can do it for your E-mail, while overlaying search features over everything. With the rising uproar about Google's proposed GMail service -- uproar which is a little dubious, because people are basically complaining that Google scanning their E-mail for analysis is a privacy intrusion, while that's exactly what third-party spam filters do -- maybe a better way to approach it is to filter the mail, and the weblinks in our messages -- by yourself. I downloaded (free) Zoe, unpacked it,clicked a neat, little Java JAR file to launch, and set up an account. 3 minutes. And it really works. Not completely intuitive, but very powerful and slick. The best way I can describe it is: it's like a Technorati for your E-mail ... although the software's own tagline -- "googling your email" -- may be at odds with Google's brand in general, and Gmail in particular. )

« 1:14:29 AM »