John Dvorak is considering moving to France. He thinks they have the right idea when it comes to limiting overzealous piracy enforcement by the entertainment industry.

[W]hile drug-dealing, cocaine use, murder, mayhem, armed robbery, rape, and illegal corporate shenanigans run rampant in the U.S.A., law enforcement has to be on the lookout for movie downloading, to protect Hollywood billionaires. Curiously, the police are often mocked and ridiculed in these movies. Ah, irony.

I watched Walk the Line the other night on DVD. The movie was OK, not great. But what really caught my attention was the ad at the beginning of the disc proclaiming that downloading or copying movies is stealing, then reminding us that stealing is bad.

This, of course, from the industry that brought us Thief, Heat, Reservoir Dogs, Grand Theft Auto, Oceans Eleven (and 12), The Italian Job... just to name a few.

Actually, stealing has been very good to Hollywood. And the days when the heist movies were morality plays, where the thief got it (not the money) in the end, are long gone. The thief today is generally the hero.

So I guess it's not stealing itself that is being discouraged by the entertainment industry --just stealing from the entertainment industry.

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Here comes the panic.

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Does this sound familiar?

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Apple at 30 has reinvented itself as the modern computer.

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I'm in vacation mode, with posting, if at all, on a leisurely South Florida late-morning schedule. (First a long walk on the beach, then to Starbucks for the ridiculously expensive and unwieldy T-Moblie connection.)

But I'm glad I connected today if only to see the Herald front page and the ensuing hub-bub in the blogs. Great entertainment. I'm sorry I missed a day, but I'll be sure to tune in tomorrow for another episode in the continuing saga of the Scalia salute.

Posted by jjdaley at 11:26 AM | Permalink

Manny being Manny (in a good way) during Wednesday's game with the Pirates in Ft. Myers, which the Sox won 3-2...

Keith Faulke followed Shiller in a parade of pitchers.

We had good shady seats on the First Base line.

Fouled high into the net.

The girls of springtime.

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One of the best parts of Gawker was the celebrity spotting. Now the Gawker Stalker is in a new and improved map form.

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The strangest mouse? Here are some contenders.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:41 AM | Permalink

There's so much illogic nested in Makau Mutua's op-ed peice on Hamas that I don't know where to start. But lets start here: We support democracy. Hamas was elected democratically. Therefore, we must support Hamas. That's pretty much his main theme, and I've heard others make the same simplistic point.

Of course by that logic we should have supported Hitler.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:14 AM | Permalink

I doubt The Pilot will run the photo of Scalia's gesture, mentioned in Laurel Sweet's story. Too bad it wasn't a Herald photographer.

But that 'freedom of the press' crack was a little disingenuous.

Although one of his sworn duties is to uphold the freedom of the press, a jocular Scalia told the shutterbug, “Don’t publish that.”

If that was a violation of the Constitution, wouldn't all the editors would be in jail?

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This is the First African Baptist Church just next to the City Market in downtown Savannah. It's chilly here, everyone is bundled up. The temp is only in the lower 60s!

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There are lots of ways to hook your iPod up to your car stereo. Here they are.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:42 AM | Permalink

While terrorist tactics are being propagated by jihadists, it's heartening to see that the tactics for conflict resolution are also being shared.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:25 AM | Permalink

Being an out-of-touch old coot, I should be in favor of the bill to raise the driving age. Its a no-brainer, especially if you know, or know of, someone who could have been saved by prohibiting young driving. And who doesn't?

Most kids successfully navigate through that period between 16-18, but not all do. It's the time that they learn that life can be a high stakes proposition. Some get it, others don't. Hell, there are college kids who shouldn't be driving.

My point is that teen driving is Adult 101 and it's pass/fail. But if we don't give kids a chance to take the course, they'll never graduate.

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Archaeologists have found what might turn out to be a significant skull.

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A volunteer working spring break gutting homes in New Orleans got a surprise when she found $30,000 stashed behind rotting Sheetrock. The homeowner had no idea where the money came from, but happily accepted it.

Posted by jjdaley at 7:36 AM | Permalink

Testimony from the trial of the two ex-New York cops who moved to Las Vegas to become gangsters and write screenplays would itself make a good screenplay.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:32 AM | Permalink

Hey, some good news for a change. The Productivity of the average worker in Boston is greater than their counterpart in San Francisco. And that's according to a Bay area report.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:20 AM | Permalink

Susannah sort of blames the victim in this instance, and I guess that have to agree with her. (Via the new spiffy looking Universal Hub.)

Posted by jjdaley at 7:18 AM | Permalink

Ugly insults are flying in the New York governor's race.

Republican gubernatorial hopeful William Weld lashed out at front-runner Eliot Spitzer yesterday, tagging him as a modern-day Mike Dukakis who likes big government.

That's gotta hurt.

Joking aside, Dukakis wasn't all that bad, was he?

Posted by jjdaley at 7:08 AM | Permalink

Will Nordic skipping catch on in Boston's neighborhoods? Jay hopes so. He's got his beach chair and binoculars ready.

What is Nordic skipping? Just thinking about it brings a chuckle, but imagine an adult holding a walking stick in each hand, very seriously and intently skipping down the street. (Picturing them dressed as a Viking makes it even better.)

Posted by jjdaley at 7:08 AM | Permalink

The much touted new version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, was delayed and scaled down to something called Vista, which is now also being delayed.

Microsoft is unintentionally abdicating the home OS market to Apple.

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People, by now, seem inured to doom and gloom climate change headlines. But maybe we should be paying more attention to this.

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Tucked away at the end of Steve Bailey's column is a mention of the possible sale, by Herald publisher Pat Purcell, of the suburban papers in the chain. It' s interesting because those are the papers that are bringing in the profits.

Mark Jurkowitz's take earlier in the week. And Dan Kennedy puts the news it into context with developments at the Globe.

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The headline reads: "Romney's Rome visit seen fueled by politics." Stop the presses. A politician engages in politics.

And don't tell me the reporters on-scene in Rome are there because they're devout Catholics.

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With rapid commercialization and huge cultural shifts, China is struggling to find its moral compass. Pointing the way are President Hu Jintao's new eight golden rules, which include,"Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless" and the old favorite, "Do good and avoid evil."

It's interesting to think about how something like this would go over here, among we cynical, morally relativistic Americans.

And speaking of cynical, what do we think Bush's eight golden rules would be?

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Om Malik has some interesting notes on iPod competition, French ridiculousness, and MP3 phones. Regarding the latter and not having an MP3 phone, I never stopped to think about what would happen when you're just getting into a great song on your phone and then, brinnngggg -you get a call. Bummer.

Posted by jjdaley at 7:14 AM | Permalink

About the virus on the BPDNews site: There was lots of confusion yesterday and a few hours of frenzied troubleshooting, but the vulnerability didn't seem to be in the Moveable Type software or in the blog level security. Apparently it was something that got into the MySQL on the host server and it was generating a call to a Russian site which then started a download of a trojan onto the user's computer.

When notified, the host provider fixed it and now things seem to be back to normal. Thanks to everyone who chipped in to help.

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Speaking of academia and punch lines, if windmill fans in Cambridge think the town is lacking in wind, how about planting those turbines at Harvard. Problem solved.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:19 AM | Permalink

That old Frank Sulloway politics and personality study is getting some local press today (as the Herald apparently needed to fill out some space on a slow news day.) Its findings unintentionally caricature both liberals and conservatives. But the punch line is that the idea of the study itself is a caricature of Berkley academia.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:17 AM | Permalink

It's a great line in this Herald story about a hapless wannabe porn star who was taken for a ride.

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While they're cleaning up the cups and silly string on Broadway today, check out the article on Wacko Hurley in the Dig. It's a good post-parade day read.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:55 AM | Permalink

So much for conventional wisdom. Apparently it's good to let kids wallow in filth.

I'm not so sure about that intestinal worm thing, though.

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Today is the first day of Spring and it's still Winter outside. But don't blame El Nino or climate destabilization due to global warming. It's March.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:26 AM | Permalink

With Boston losing population, Brett Arends crunches the job growth numbers and finds the culprit. Other cities are gaining jobs and we're still losing them. With that, and with the high price of real estate in the area, it's no wonder we're the amazing shrinking city.

Posted by jjdaley at 6:21 AM | Permalink

If you think all the money put into nanotechnology research is going down the drain, get a load of this.

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Despite community concerns, Verizon wants to build a cell tower in the Glenwood Cemetery in Natick. Neighbors’ objections are mostly aesthetic, but then again, with cell-phone activated zombies in Malden, you just can’t be too careful.

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In the wake of the recent wave of Bulger books, Ray Flynn is calling for the creation of a committee on Irish-American discrimination. “Irish-American culture and history is under attack,” he railed.

I think Ray has way too much time on his hands these days.

Posted by jjdaley at 11:43 AM | Permalink

From a Sunday Globe article on municipally funded ballparks, I wandered to Google Earth to view some on the parks mentioned in the article, then to the Los Angles area, where I happened to turn on the Google Earth Community function.

I had no idea how many cool things were placemarked: Homes of the rich and famous, movie locations, the Whiskey and Roxy on Sunset Strip, the Playboy Mansion, album cover scenes and even the spot where Hugh Grant picked up a prostitute.

I was also fascinated to find the Beverly Hillbillies' house which, being next door to Ronald Regan's home, begs the question, who were the real Mr.and Mrs. Drysdale?

((Unfortunately, I cant seem to get the Google Earth placemark links to work. But enter "Chanruss Pl, Beverly Hills, CA 90210" into the search bar, check the Google Earth Community boxes and zoom back a bit.))

Posted by jjdaley at 7:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Carpundit got one of those new-fangled iPod Nano things and he's enthused. As a self-proclaimed Gizmologist and early iPod adopter, I have to agree with him that the Nano is by far the best of the line.

Posted by jjdaley at 9:39 AM | Permalink

I'm a ten-dollar-a-bottle wine connoisseur, but I like to read what people with more discerning taste, like Eric Asimov, have to say. Check out his new wine blog, The Pour.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:15 AM | Permalink

According to this article, the groundwork is now being laid for the MySpace backlash of 2010.

(Actually it's happening now. It amazes me that younger people don't realize that their bosses have the ability to find, and regularly read, those MySpace posts about the workplace.)

Posted by jjdaley at 8:01 AM | Permalink

I have a hard time accepting that we, as a country, sort of let New Orleans fade away. But the fact is that people don't seem to care that a whole American City was pretty much wiped out.

Maybe it's the perception that the town brought much of the tragedy on itself: the police ran away, city gangs came out to terrorize survivors, incompetent politicians and officials let bodies rot on the streets for weeks. Although much of the coverage of this stuff is now known to have been overblown, those are the stories that have stayed with the public.

And now come the indictments for corruption and hurricane relief fraud. One a day, according to the US Attorney. Not good.

Add this to all that: the two police officers, filmed in the act of looting the Wal Mart after Katrina, were just cleared of the charges. Apparently they had been given official permission to steal those items seen in the film, which appeared to include children's clothing. They did receive administrative punishment for letting other people steal, and for being 'discourteous' to the NBC correspondent. You can't make it up.

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Blondie is still New Wave? That's a bit of a stretch. And apparently they're getting ready to go on the road with the New Cars, featuring Todd Rundgren?

It's the 'throw away whatever's left of your musical integrity' tour, 06. They can keep the t-shirt.

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Some gerontologists believe that the first person that will live to be 1000 years old has already been born.

Maybe that guy will get to see flying cars.

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Less idealism, more realism. Better late than never. It's an interesting take on the evolution of the Bush foreign policy.

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With all due respect to those social theorists who think that more people should be walking around carrying guns, this is what actually happens when more people walk around carrying guns.

Posted by jjdaley at 7:57 AM | Permalink

I'm divided on whether this is real news or just irrelevant 'lives of the rich and famous' voyeurism. So, rich people hire parking valets when they invite friends over. Should I care?

Maybe I should, since it's just another sign that soon, the only people left that can afford to live in Boston will be rich people. (How long will that take? Place your vote.)

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Last night, the sunset was accompanied by snow squalls, wind and clouds parting just in time for this shot of the Mission Church on Tremont Street.

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An old street portrait.

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Just try to zoom in and pick out your car in this Google map. Driving directions may not work either.

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Rita Katz knows the Iraqi political landscape. She writes today in a Globe op-ed that all is going according to plan.

But it's not our plan.

Posted by jjdaley at 8:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

You have to bookmark the Monty Python silly walks generator (courtesy of Bob Congdon.) This is why technology matters.

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I'm glad there are no killer whales in the North River where I kayak. Check out this video.

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There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions this morning. A Globe Ideas section article considers several likely scenarios, none of them very attractive. Meanwhile, the Iranian government is threatening to use it's control over oil and shipping lanes as a weapon, cutting us and Europe off if sanctions are imposed over their nuclear program. And, the best hope for avoiding those sanctions, the Russian deal, just fell through.

If you thought the US / USSR nuclear standoff was volatile, writes Graham Allison in the Ideas piece, just imagine a US / Russian / Iranian / Egyptian / Israeli / Pakistani / Indian / European nuclear arms race. (And that's leaving out China and North Korea, both of which would also be calculating their moves.) A multiparty standoff like this would be dangerously unstable.

That, unfortunately, seems to be where we're heading.

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It's hard for many people to separate art and artist. Remember the Dixie Chicks? Whatever you think of their politics, the girls can sing.

In another example, Jay points to Oliver Stone, a notorious crackpot, who, he says, is a great director. I agree. I'm a big Oliver Stone fan. l wouldn't say all of life's riddles are answered in his movies, which often require a suspension of disbelief, but still, you have to admit that Stone knows his craft. I'm partial to Natural Born Killers, which I think is one of the great post-modern movies.

I'm waiting for his World Trade Center movie. In a famous speech captured by Christopher Hitchens after 911, Stone referred to the event as the September 11th "uprising," so it will be interesting to see where he goes with the film which is described in its publicity sheet as "a true story of courage and survival." The question is, whose?

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This morning, Eileen McNamara is in the right pew but the wrong church. She's right that the premature revelation of investigative information is a problem, a big problem, both for the reputation of the initial suspect and for the integrity of investigations.

There was a time police did not name a suspect until they had nailed down enough evidence to make an arrest. Now, police identify a ''person of interest" at the earliest stages of their investigation.

But she's wrong in blaming the police alone. Sure, cops should shut up and stop talking to reporters, granted. But I would venture to say there's more to this story.

What about the tremendous pressure that crime reporters receive from their editors to get something, anything, on a big crime story? Is that a factor? How about the reporters who cultivate disgruntled and often out-of-touch anonymous sources within the police department, manipulating them with fluff to get them to talk about things that they only know second or third hand? That can't be good.

Eileen is right. There's something wrong with the picture. But from where she's sitting, she's only seeing the half of it.

(See the about for a better idea of my own viewing angle.)

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