Push to kid yourself

New York Times: "More than 2,500 of the 3,250 walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical placebos." Link to this entry Posted on 2/27/04; 5:55:09 PM

Gay Marriage FAQ

My pals at Explainer tackle the most common reader questions: What are the legal differences between a marriage and a civil union? If Massachusetts passes a law saying that same-sex couples can marry, do all other 49 states have to give full faith and credit to that law? If the state (or the federal government, for that matter) subsequently enacts a constitutional amendment banning such marriages, will the couples who wed in the interim remain married, or will their marriages dissolve? Will gay and lesbian married couples in Massachusetts and/or San Francisco be able to call themselves married on their 2005 IRS tax forms? And can a proposed amendment to the federal Constitution be declared unconstitutional? Link to this entry Posted on 2/27/04; 4:58:30 PM

BitTorrent on Slate (and vice versa)

Just posted: Caveat MPAA. "Meet BitTorrent, the file-sharing network that makes trading movies a breeze." The more popular a file is on BT, the faster it downloads. I love the Deadhead / New Economy slant of that. Given the number of references to the Grateful Dead in the piece, I'd hoped they would post it ten minutes later at 4:20. Link to this entry Posted on 2/27/04; 4:34:06 PM

Broadcast Flag backlash

Scott Rafer sent me this link to an FCC filing in the works to explain to the commission why tech companies think legislating product design (in order to meet copy protection decrees for TV) will do more harm than good. It's not a petition for you to sign, it's a filing for your company to join. If you think it's a good idea, send it to the boss. Link to this entry Posted on 2/27/04; 3:14:01 PM

Eisner's letter to Ovitz

LA Times has many excerpts of Disney honcho Michael Eisner's 1996 you-need-to-resign letter to Michael Ovitz. There's lots of talk about corporate conduct issues, but particularly this point about dealing with the press: "When the article came out, you told me, [Peter Bart, the powerful editor at Variety] had sent it on to you beforehand for 'corrections and tone and editing.' That is not how we should run this company." This Eisner guy isn't all bad. Link to this entry Posted on 2/27/04; 10:58:03 AM

Debate wrapup

Salon editor Scott Rosenberg kidded me that I'm Slate's RSS feed. Today's enclosure: Chris Suellentrop's lengthy review of last night's Democratic candidate debate for those of us who don't own a television. By the end of the debate a second impossible transformation had occurred. John Edwards turned into John Kerry. Kerry answered a difficult question from Larry King about his opposition to the death penalty—"A person who kills a 5-year-old should live?"—clearly and directly. "Larry, my instinct is to want to strangle that person with my own hands," he said. But the system is flawed, it's applied unjustly, and as a matter of principle, "the state should not engage in killing." That's the best answer you can give to that unpopular position. Edwards, by contrast, sounded like the Kerry of old when he tried to explain why he supports a system that King said "nearly executed over 100 people who didn't do it." He talked about how "serious" the issue was, and how "serious steps" need to be taken, such as "making the court system work." Finally, King bailed him out: But why do you favor capital punishment? Oh yeah, Edwards seemed to think, that's what I should be talking about, and he brought up some liberal red meat: "Those men who dragged James Byrd behind that truck in Texas, they deserve the death penalty." Link to this entry Posted on 2/27/04; 9:21:56 AM