They're inconsequential. But throw a cat into a cauldron of boiling water and Paul McCartney thinks civilization is coming to an end.

"I wouldn't even dream of going over there to play, in the same way I wouldn't go to a country that supported apartheid," McCartney says during a BBC News feature on animal cruelty in the Chinese fur trade.

"It's like something out of the dark ages," he continues. "It's just against every rule of humanity. I couldn't go there."

The video footage, which aired as part of BBC's Six O'Clock News Monday in England, purportedly shows screaming cats and dogs lifted out of tiny cages with metal tongs and thrown over a seven-foot fence. A bag of cats is seen thrown into a cauldron of boiling water. Several other animals are shown being brutally killed and skinned.

"How can the host nation of the Olympics be seen allowing animals to be treated in this terrible way?" McCartney asks.

"If they want to consider themselves a civilized nationÂ…they're going to have to stop this."

During the News program, McCartney and wife Heather Mills express horror, shock and disgust in response to the video, which was shot by an undercover investigator for PETA. Both McCartney and Mills are outspoken animal-rights activists.

Says Mills: "People in every other country in the world should now boycott Chinese goods." {...}

While I don't necessarily think it's a good thing to be cruel to animals, where, precisely, was Sir Paul's outrage when Mao was having his little tete-a-tete out in the countryside, you know, that little event that's more commonly known as The Cultural Revolution? Yeah, I know, he was probably stoned like everyone else was. It was the sixties, after all. But still, The Beatles wielded some power back then.

But, seriously though, is he worried about the high rates of female infanticide in rural China? You know, little baby girls being killed right after birth, their tiny bodies dumped in shallow graves because boys are more highly valued? Is he worried about political dissidents who are forced into slave labor? What about the workers who are poorly paid to sew together those cat and dog pelts into coats and the like? Where's his outrage on their behalf?

The better question, however, is do you think the BBC will cover Sir Paul's indignation about how the PRC treats people the same way they covered this piece of PETA propaganda?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:41 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Once again, it never ceases to amaze me what people will do to fill the hours.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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For those who happen to have an old MacSE sitting around.

I will say it again: it never ceases to amaze me what some people will do to fill the hours.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It keeps going on and on and on and on.

I don't think Sony BMG had any idea what sort of Pandora's box they were opening up when they allowed that rootkit onto their CD's. First4Internet, the company that promoted and sold the rootkit idea to Sony BMG as the solution to their DRM problems, is not going to exist soon because Sony's getting sued left and right, so it only makes sense that Sony BMG would lay off the liability on them. This isn't going away anytime soon.

Which leads one to wonder what sort of lesson Sony BMG and other record labels will pull from this misadventure. Will they think that it was all right to do insert malware onto people's computers, but that they just need to be stealthier about it next time around? Or will they take the freakin' hint already and shy away from that sort of thing in the future? One would think it would be the latter, but where Digital Rights Management is concerned, and there's loads of money lying about to be spent on lawyers and lobbyists, one can't be too sure about anything.

This is the first battle in the DRM war for as long as I can remember that the record companies have lost. That they've been willing to retreat on because it became patently obvious that their chosen method of DRM was bad for business. One wonders when they will realize that DRM in itself is bad for business?

{...}I'm all for the capitalist system. But I'm also very much a strict constitutionalist and for individual liberties. DRM systems are not a business model, they're an abuse of the legal system: a means to extract fees and control above and beyond the original intention of a simple business transaction.{...}

For me, DRM falls into the same category as the Kelo decision. Personal property rights are an absolutely crucial ingredient to the liberty and prosperity that Americans enjoy. My opinion of the Kelo decision is that it is possibly the most damaging legal ruling in the history of the United States. The entire mortgage industry, which has enabled more people in America to own their homes than in any other country, and which for the past 30-50 years has been the chief enabler driving the economy is all based upon the idea that the property of an individual has value. If the government can come in and expand the definition of Eminent Domain seemingly arbitrarily, that property will cease to have the same value it has in the past. This has the potential to undermine the economy in a way that oil shortages and natural disasters never can. This erodes the trust and covenent between the individual in a democracy and the government elected to represent that individual.

That may look like it has nothing to do with DRM, but to my mind its the same thing on a different scale. If I buy a piece of music, does Sony and it's lawyers get to tell me what I can do with that music? If so, then what did I just pay for? Can Sony and its lawyers change the definition of what I can do with that music after the purchase? If so, then they can arbitrarily affect the value of the thing that I supposedly own without compensating me for the change in value. This is truly dangerous.{...}

Posted by: Kathy at 12:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Just in case your next stop after reading Lileks is the Cake Eater, although I don't know why it would be, I feel obliged to let you know, that, no, it hasn't started snowing yet.

But, we're not out of the woods, yet. And it looks like it's actually going to snow well into Wednesday... Or so the local weather guy keeps assuring me, in a breathless, oh-pleasepleaseplease-let-it-be-true, pants chock-a-block full of ants sort of way.

This is my ninth Minnesota winter. I still have yet to understand why people up here get as excited as they do when it comes to the first snowfall. Whoop-de-doo. It snows here in the winter. {Insert Gomer Pyle Voice Here} Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! {/Gomer voice} We live in the northernmost state in the contiguous forty-eight; we're just south of Canada: it's going to snow, sometime, during the winter. It's a given. Yet people---the weather people in particular---get all breathy and hysterical about it, like virgins on prom night. Their eyes shine with an unholy glee that suggests ice fishing is just around the corner and they can't freakin' wait to drive their ten-ton pickup truck across a frozen lake to their ice fishing hut so they can saw open a hole in the lake and sit there with a twelve pack of Bud, and a line in the frozen water. (Yes. You're remembering Grumpy Old Men aren't you? Yes, people actually do that up here. They didn't just make that up.) They think of the joys of outdoor ice rinks and cross country skiing and snowshoeing and snowmobiling and all of that winter-related crap---and yet none of these winter pasttimes can happen unless the snow starts falling.

So, if you believe the hype, you'd think the State of Minnesota would be full of people who love winter. And yet....and yet, even here in the Great White Hinterlands people still forget how to freakin' drive in the fluffy white stuff. I know. You'd think it would be the opposite. That we'd have a population of nothing but battle-hardened, wise drivers who could handle driving in snow and ice. But no. People here are like people from anywhere else: they will forget how to drive today---and it will be because there will be snowflakes falling from the skies. Some people will forget how to brake today, while others will forget how to press the gas pedal. Some will swerve and will wind up in the ditch. Some will not swerve and will wind up in the back of the car in front of them. Some will make it home safely; some will have to have their cars home. All will bitch about everyone else's inability to drive in bad weather.

It's amazing in this day and age that people could forget that they have anti-lock brakes, but they do. They also forget that they have nice tires that grip the road in all weather conditions. They forget not to ride on the brake and that if your car starts to swing one way, you slowly turn the steering wheel opposite. But mostly they'll forget that it's been warm this autumn---the ground hasn't frozen yet, so it's not like ice will be forming on streets where there's plenty of traffic, eh? It's just wet, kids, not slippery. It's not that hard, people, to remember this stuff. Really, it's not. Save everyone the traffic jam tonight, please. I don't want to have to listen to a thousand horns honking outside of my nice, warm apartment this evening.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:27 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Oh, the hypocrisy of Sony BMG

{...} the rootkit technology itself has copyright infringing code taken from LAME, the open source mp3 encoder -- which has a clear copyright license, requiring certain things, none of which Sony BMG/First4Internet follows. Yes, the irony is thick: this technology that Sony BMG still claims is necessary to protect its intellectual property, apparently violates other's intellectual property{...}

Yes, kids, you read that one right: the only copyrights that matter are Sony's.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One has to fight off the desire to put one's head in one's hands and weep copiously after reading this article regarding the new version of Pride and Prejudice.

Choice cuts that provoke the onset of weeping:

{...}But then, Wright {Ed. the director} was sent the script to Pride & Prejudice. "I read it in the pub one Sunday afternoon," he recalls, "and by about page 60, I was weeping into my pints of lager. And I was laughing out loud as well and surprised by that."

That's when Wright finally checked out the source material. "I read the novel and I was shocked by what an extraordinary piece of observation it was. How honest and truthful its writing was. I was also shocked by the ages of the characters (Elizabeth is 20 and Darcy is 2 . It struck me that these were young people experiencing these emotions for the first time."{...}

He read it at the pub? Are you kidding me? You don't read a script for a Jane Austen movie at the pub! You prepare yourself a pot of tea, pull some biscuits out of a tin and put them on a plate, you settle yourself down in your garden and then you read it. The nerve of the man!

Never mind how you can get to thirty-three-years old and never have read Pride and Prejudice. Never mind the blatant cultural degeneracy that's on display here. That's apparently another complaint for another day.

{...}Wright went with the Darcy he saw in his head, a vulnerable young man with big responsibilities after the death of his parents who suffers from a lack of social graces. "He put on a suit of manhood that didn't quite fit him," he says, "and Elizabeth teaches him how to be a man."

A suit of manhood that didn't quite fit him? What in bleedin' hell are you talking about? Just because your adolescence was extended to your thirties doesn't mean that Darcy was afforded the same luxury. A lack of social graces? You must be joking? Seriously, now. No one can honestly say that Darcy lacked social graces. He was rich enough that the graces molded themselves around him, not the other way round. That's the way it was in those days---and is much the way it is today, still. That was one of the points that Austen was trying to make. Like, duh.

{...}"We had the Bennet giggle," says Knightley of the way she and the four actresses who played her sisters set the mood before each scene. "It's a high-pitched, screaming, chaotic monkey-like giggle that would get us into it. Joe wanted us to always speak over each other so you got the feeling of people who are so used to each other, they don't even listen anymore. I do think it will make it more accessible."

Jane and Lizzie spoke over the others? Now, Kitty, Lydia and Mrs. Bennet. I can understand these characters speaking over one another. But adding Jane and Lizzie to the shrill cacophany of the rest of the Bennets?

Ummm, no. That's just not going to fly.

{...}Most memorably, the movie replaces Elizabeth's view-altering tour of a portrait gallery inside Darcy's Pemberley estate with a stroll through a maze of alabaster nude sculptures, her eyes devouring their voluptuous beauty.

"I have an issue with the book, which a lot of people also have," Wright says. "Why is it, when Elizabeth goes to Pemberley, she finally accepts she likes Darcy? Is it because of his wealth? What I was hoping to achieve was a sense of her appreciating his cultural sensitivity."

Oh, for the love of all that is good and holy. It's not the house that changes Lizzie's mind about Darcy, you fools! Remember Wickham? Remember Wickham laying off a false story about Darcy on Lizzie, wherein Wickham was the hero and Darcy the villain? Remember Lizzie refusing Darcy's first proposal because she thought the story Wickham had fed her was true? Remember the letter Darcy sent Lizzie to set the record straight? Remember the housekeeper telling Lizzie a patently different tale about her master when she toured Pemberly with the Gardiners?

Lizzie's change of heart had nothing to do with the money. If her refusal didn't have anything to do with his wealth, why would her acceptance be any different? Furthermore, this is business about "her appreciating his cultural sensitivity" is complete and utter rot. And I can prove it.

"Elizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situatied on the opposite side of the valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills;---and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They awere all of them so warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberly might be something!

{...}The housekeeper came; a respectable-looking, elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of spendor and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.{...}

---Chapter 45, Pride and Prejudice

Given this passage, it's apparent that Darcy would sooner have a gallery of nude sculptures on the grounds of Pemberly as Jimmy Carter would welcome a bunny rabbit into his house.

And then we come to the real problem I have with this article:

The one picture they include of Colin Firth isn't anywhere as good as this one.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:24 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Anderson Cooper:

{...}Going gray is like ejaculation. You know it can happen prematurely, but when it actually does, it's a total shock.{...}

I don't know about you, but I feel so much better about the future of CNN!

{Hat tip: Steve-o}

Posted by: Kathy at 08:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Tommy Boy has fired his publicist---his sister.

LOS ANGELES -
Tom Cruise has replaced his sister with a Hollywood insider as chief handler of his publicity.

The 43-year-old actor hired veteran publicist Paul Bloch, who's also a co-chairman for publicity firm Rogers & Cowan, according to the Daily Variety trade paper. Bloch also will oversee publicity for the actor's production company Cruise-Wagner Productions.

Bloch replaces Cruise's sister, Lee Anne DeVette, who took over as his publicist in March 2004 after he left longtime representative Pat Kingsley.

"Lee Anne has done a wonderful job on behalf of myself and Cruise-Wagner Productions over the last few years," Cruise said in a statement. "But she has always expressed a desire to oversee and expand the day-to-day activities of my charitable endeavors."{...}

Tommy Boy might think that he's letting his sister down easy here, but let's face facts: she may be overseeing his charitable excursions, but he just shitcanned her. For being a "yes" woman. For letting him do exactly what he wanted to do.

That's just cold. Brrrrrrr.

So much for sibling love, eh?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Once upon a time, in a state far, far away called Iowa, I was what is typically called a process server. The quick and dirty definition of process serving is that I served lawsuits on people. I was a cheaper and quicker alternative to the Polk County Sherrif's office, who charged an arm and a leg for the same service and who took their sweet time about it. Pretty simple stuff, but I wasn't real popular, if you get my drift.

Anyway, one time I had to serve papers on Menards. It was my habit to read the petition and the accompanying paperwork, just to know what I was walking into. A woman was suing Menards on behalf of herself and on behalf of her son, because Iowa has that crazy "loss of consortium" rule, wherein your family can be co-plaintiffs on a lawsuit you file because you were less of a family member to them. Anyway, I read the lawsuit and I started laughing, because it was one of those banana peel lawsuits---but not in the way you think. It was a banana peel lawsuit because if you trip and fall on a banana peel, it's funny; if I tripped and fell on a banana peel, it's tragedy---hence I can sue for damages. This woman, undoubtedly, thought that being hit by a falling doghouse was a tragedy. It's got all the makings of one, right? She was walking through her local Menards, her young son walking alongside her, minding her own business, when---WHAMMO!---from out of nowhere, a doghouse that was hanging from the ceiling for display purposes breaks loose of its chains and falls on her. That would be a tragedy, wouldn't it?

I suppose most people would find that a horrifying tragedy. Unless you're me, however. In which case it's damn fine comedy. And you have to hold the laughter in as you serve the paperwork. Because it wouldn't be professional to laugh. Or to join in the laughter of the people you just served when they start giggling. It's just horrible. And your abs quiver horribly under the strain of holding the laughter in, ulitmately straining muscles you didn't know you had,

So, it should be said that I have nothing but sympathy for the process server who had to serve the papers on Home Depot for this little debacle.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:41 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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"Greenpeace to pay fine for damaging coral reef
Environmental group blames charts after ship hits Philippines site"

{Insert much laughing, rolling around on the floor, and tears flowing down my face here}

{Hat Tip: The Kid}

Posted by: Kathy at 11:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 What a riot! The cure has become worse than the disease! Al

Posted by: Al at November 02, 2005 11:42 AM (cSRsu)

2 Oh. The irony. Please make it stop.

Posted by: RP at November 02, 2005 02:34 PM (LlPKh)

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