Supposedly Wikileaks provocateur Julian Assange – now languishing in a UK prison on suspicious rape allegations from Sweden – and his fellow Wikifreaks have a "poison pill" of information that gets automatically released if anything serious happens to them.
That might be true and it might not. Maybe we'll find out. But if this organization has some bombshell of information, why won't it just release it already? I thought the whole point of that group was to make secret information public, to take down what it sees as evil manipulative governments regardless of the cost.
So some information is worth keeping secret by Wikileaks, but governments don't get to keep information secret? And Wikileaks is the arbiter?
Governments have millions of shortcomings, but at least they are more responsible to their citizens than is Wikileaks.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
He's Batman, and He's Returned: The Starlog Project, Starlog #178, May 1992
In the short questionnaire applicants are asked to fill out and mail to the Starlog panel, there is a section for them to choose their age bracket, ranging from "under 12" to "12-17" and so on, until it reached the upper limits: "40 or Over." Makes me feel old.
Here's something that will make you feel as "young as when the world was new" – a classified ad listed under the "Miscellaneous" category this issue: "PROPERTY DEEDS OF MARS! For FREE brochure, send SASE to ..."
Also this month is an ad for SFX magazine – no, not the UK science-fiction magazine that is still going strong. This SFX was a one-shot publication edited by David Hutchison that focused on special effects. I suspect it would have spawned a continuing series of SFXs, had it been a success. But alas, that was not to be.
Starlog #178
84 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95
With the addition of four extra pages to the magazine, Starlog also converts four of its non-full-color pages to full color, so the higher cover price is finally starting to pay off for the readers. The magazine also rearranges where it places the uncoated (non-glossy) pages, and as a result it runs its first feature article right after the contents page and thus before the front-of-the-book departments. Not a big change, that, but I have dedicated this article series to chronicling the publishing as well as editing facets of Starlog over the years. Plus, I like to have an extra paragraph before I get to the article rundown. Speaking of which ...The rundown: The second Michael Keaton caped crusader film, Batman Returns, takes over the cover, while Sean Patrick Flanery's Young Indiana Jones Chronicles assumes control of the contents page. Marc Shapiro interviews last month's cover boy, Chevy Chase, about his new film Memoirs of an Invisible Man; Communications letters cover the gamut from Star Trek to ... well, Star Trek, but at least Mike Fischer's Creature Profile cartoon steps out and features Quintopus, which I'd never heard of, and neither have you; David McDonnell's Medialog reports that Eddie Murphy's next movie, Boomerang, will feature Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt; Booklog reviews The Crafters, Earthgrip, Griffin's Egg, The Flies of Memory, and Elsewhere; David Hutchison's Videolog column announces the continued release of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes on video; the Fan Network pages include Lia Pelosi's ongoing directory of science-fiction fan clubs and publications, plus the convention listings; in a one-page Tribute obituaries section, Anthony Timpone says good-bye to actor Angelo Rossitto, and John Sayers does the honors for Dame Judith Anderson; and Kerry O'Quinn's From the Bridge column returns to a theme that had been common in his columns years earlier: the need for SF fans to have more in their lives than just fandom.
Bill Warren interviews actor Rick Moranis about Honey, I Blew Up the Kid; one of the big-screen misfires of the early 1980s, Cool World, had enough star power behind it (director Ralph Baksi, stars Kim Basinger, Gabriel Burnes and Brad Pitt) to give it attention but not box office – nonetheless, Marc Shapiro goes behind the scenes to talk about the making of this film; British correspondent Adam Pirani visits the set of Shadowchaser, a killer-cyborg flick that might remind you of Terminator, sans success; a more successful film of the time, Barman Returns, is previewed with a set visit by Marc Shapiro and tons of color photos (just wait until next issue, though); Adam Pirani goes to see the filming of the Kim Cattrall-Rutger Hauer film Split Second; and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles writer Frank Darabont tells Bill Warren about the highly touted new series.
Ian Spelling visits the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation to get the behind-the-scenes take on the filming of an episode; Tom Weaver interviews actor Robert Cornthwaite, who speaks about the classic 1950s' film The Thing from Another World; Kim Howard Johnson looks at the making of the Dolph Lundgren/Jean-Claude Van Damme-starring punch-em-up Universal Soldier; and editor David McDonnell wraps it all up in his Liner Notes column, where he explains this issue's focus on behind-the-scenes reports on upcoming films.
"Another project that [Chevy] Chase claims is 'still a possibility' is a Roger Rabbit-type film with the working title of Bugs Bunny & Chevy Chase, to be directed by Richard Donner. Chase, surprised that anybody recalls that long-dormant concept, remembers: 'It was an idea of mine that I threw out on an airplane one day. Dick and a couple of Warner Bros. executives were sitting there and they all said it was a great idea. It's a lot like Roger Rabbit, half-animation and half-live action, that would be about Bugs Bunny and myself.'"
–Marc Shapiro, writer, "I'm Invisible and You're Not"For more, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent site.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
National Lampoon Editors Live: Fora's Upcoming Live Streaming Event
Notes Fora's web site:
RICK MEYEROWITZ, HILTON ALS, JOHN WEIDMAN, SEAN KELLY, BRIAN MCCONNACHIE, CHRISTOPHER CERF, FRED GRAVER, TONY HENDRA, MICHEL CHOQUETTE, LARRY "RATSO" SLOMAN, JOE RANDAZZO, PETER REIGERT and others!
The National Lampoon rose like a rocket: Launched during the late Vietnam years, it climbed through the drug-addled counter-cultural haze of the early 1970s to orbit an American scene desperately in need of a laugh. If the magazine had a point of view, it was that everybody and everything was fair game: raving, right-wing lunatics, tie-dyed peaceniks, tedious noodniks; all were offended by their stick-in-your-eye style of humor. This irreverence seemed to work. The National Lampoon blazed like a comet for a decade, spinning off innumerable special projects, books, magazines, theater pieces, films, television shows, and eventually writers and artists. The mainstays of the magazine moved on, finding their way to other mediums. Over time, the National Lampoon pedigree faded from their resumes, and the magazine, like some of the contributors, returned to earth.
To celebrate the publication of Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who made the National Lampoon Insanely Great, LIVE from the NYPL will reunite many of those editors and artists who were the core of the National Lampoon's staff in the 1970's for a once-in-a-lifetime evening of reminiscence and laughter. Listen in as they and their special guests tell hilarious and outrageous behind-the-scenes stories about the formative days of America's greatest humor magazine!So, no P.J. O'Rourke, but that might not be a surprise. Visit Fora.tv for more info. For more on the book Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, see my earlier short article.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Milton Friedman Treasure-Trove
Part I
Part II
Good resources for the economics fan, whether or not one subscribes to Friedman's theories.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Irvin Kershner Dead at 87
SFX magazine reports that director Irvin Kershner has passed away at the age of 87. As the man who directed what was in my opinion the best of the Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back, Kershner definitely left his mark.
Wikileaks Does Its Damage
I sit here writing this in San Francisco, which is pretty much ground-zero for people who believe that technology has revolutionized life so much that old rules, old ethics, old ways of thinking don't apply – and in so doing, they prove that old ways of thinking never die.
We're in Day Two of the latest Wikileaks caper. As everyone – and I mean everyone – knows by now, numerous news organizations around the world have sifted through about a quarter-billion private (and many secret – some even extremely secret) communications from the U.S. State Department.
I think of this caper as Project Open Drawers. Many people seem to be approaching it as if it's a delightful opportunity to root through the private filing drawers (yes, those were the drawers I meant, what did you think I was referring to?) of the government to learn juicy secrets.
Some of what we're learning from these illegally obtained communications is mundane, such as the world-shocker that German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is considered a foreign-policy lightweight. Well, Inspector, it took a secret diplomatic cable to tell you that?
Other tidbits are likely to be world-shakers. For example, the information that Eqypt, Saudi Arabia, and nearly every other Middle Eastern country's leaders are scared witless about Iran having nuclear weapons and many of them have been urging the United States to attack Iran to destroy the nuclear program.
Now, anyone who has followed Middle East reporting for years knows that the governments there are privately much more supportive of American aims in the region than they let on to their people. Their people, on the other hand, tend to be much less supportive of American policies than are their governments, yet the people tend to be much more positively disposed to Americans themselves (perhaps because the Middle Easterners know all too well that a government's policies don't necessarily reflect the will of the governed). Naturally, if the leaders let on to their people how much they want stable oil prices, U.S. military protection, and Western bombs falling on Tehran's military facilities, their streets could explode with popular outrage. The world might not weep too much for some of the region's authoritarian regimes being swept aside by popular outrage, but as we learned in Iran, these thugs could easily be replaced by something even worse.
The short-, mid-, and long-term fallout from the release of these is likely to be significant, and all bad.
Over at German public news service Deutsche Welle, the negative impact was put mildly:
Foreign leaders will not trust that their most candid statements to American diplomats will remain confidential. If you were a foreign leader who had important opinions or suggestions you wanted to pass along but knew that it could lead to your overthrow or death if they were known, would you talk candidly to an American diplomat anytime soon? I sure as hell wouldn't.
And if you were an American diplomat at any of the thousands of places around the world where you are supposed to be asserting American interests and passing information back to Washington, are you going to think twice, maybe thrice before writing something controversial?
As a result, American leaders will get less candid information about the rest of the world in an era when the international situation is moving rapidly – and not necessarily in our interests. Even the parts of diplomacy that involve petty spying are crucial to learning the true motives of other countries. In the Cold War, having spies in Soviet countries did much to decrease tensions, because they mostly helped us understand the real motives of Soviet bloc leaders and undercut the wild fantasies of paranoiacs in Washington think tanks and in government.
As I've said before, America has never suffered from too much information and knowledge. Now we'll have even less – plus we have a lot of angry and distrustful allies around the world. Way to go, Wikileakers.
I think of this caper as Project Open Drawers. Many people seem to be approaching it as if it's a delightful opportunity to root through the private filing drawers (yes, those were the drawers I meant, what did you think I was referring to?) of the government to learn juicy secrets.
Some of what we're learning from these illegally obtained communications is mundane, such as the world-shocker that German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is considered a foreign-policy lightweight. Well, Inspector, it took a secret diplomatic cable to tell you that?
Other tidbits are likely to be world-shakers. For example, the information that Eqypt, Saudi Arabia, and nearly every other Middle Eastern country's leaders are scared witless about Iran having nuclear weapons and many of them have been urging the United States to attack Iran to destroy the nuclear program.
Now, anyone who has followed Middle East reporting for years knows that the governments there are privately much more supportive of American aims in the region than they let on to their people. Their people, on the other hand, tend to be much less supportive of American policies than are their governments, yet the people tend to be much more positively disposed to Americans themselves (perhaps because the Middle Easterners know all too well that a government's policies don't necessarily reflect the will of the governed). Naturally, if the leaders let on to their people how much they want stable oil prices, U.S. military protection, and Western bombs falling on Tehran's military facilities, their streets could explode with popular outrage. The world might not weep too much for some of the region's authoritarian regimes being swept aside by popular outrage, but as we learned in Iran, these thugs could easily be replaced by something even worse.
The short-, mid-, and long-term fallout from the release of these is likely to be significant, and all bad.
Over at German public news service Deutsche Welle, the negative impact was put mildly:
Ruprecht Polenz, the chairman of Germany's Foreign Committee, was of the opinion that "considerable damage" had been done. "The partners of the United States are under the assumption that what is discussed with them remains confidential. Now, certainly, doubts have been raised. Our American partners will have to work to dispel these doubts," Polenz said on German public television on Monday.Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Rober Hunter put it, well, the most diplomatically: "[H]ere I think is the most serious problem: Many foreign leaders will be more reluctant to say things to U.S. diplomats if they worry that these things will show up in public. And as a result, the methodology of communication may have to adopt different ways and means in order to minimize the risks. That's the real problem that people will perhaps be less candid in the future and the way of communicating that back to Washington will have to change."
Foreign leaders will not trust that their most candid statements to American diplomats will remain confidential. If you were a foreign leader who had important opinions or suggestions you wanted to pass along but knew that it could lead to your overthrow or death if they were known, would you talk candidly to an American diplomat anytime soon? I sure as hell wouldn't.
And if you were an American diplomat at any of the thousands of places around the world where you are supposed to be asserting American interests and passing information back to Washington, are you going to think twice, maybe thrice before writing something controversial?
As a result, American leaders will get less candid information about the rest of the world in an era when the international situation is moving rapidly – and not necessarily in our interests. Even the parts of diplomacy that involve petty spying are crucial to learning the true motives of other countries. In the Cold War, having spies in Soviet countries did much to decrease tensions, because they mostly helped us understand the real motives of Soviet bloc leaders and undercut the wild fantasies of paranoiacs in Washington think tanks and in government.
As I've said before, America has never suffered from too much information and knowledge. Now we'll have even less – plus we have a lot of angry and distrustful allies around the world. Way to go, Wikileakers.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Siberian Tiger Cubs Raised by Goats
Figured that would be a feel-good way to head off toward a happy Thanksgiving. (After all, it's the holiday that everyone except a turkey could love.)
Buy Your Used X-Wing Fighters Today!
(And no, I'm not the John in the video. I found this randomly on YouTube.)
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