1. "China to Bush: Stay out of our affairs": Great headline.
["China rejected President Bush's criticism Thursday of its human rights record and restrictions on religion, diplomatically telling him to stay out of its affairs only hours before he arrived in Beijing to attend the Olympics. In a speech in Bangkok outlining America's achievements and challenges in Asia, Bush pushed for a free press, free assembly and labor rights in China, and against its detentions of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists. He said he wasn't trying to antagonize China, but called such reform the only path the potent U.S. rival can take to reach its full potential. He antagonized the Chinese anyway, setting the stage for an interesting reception when he attends the opening ceremonies Friday evening, takes in some events — including the U.S.-China men's basketball game — and meets with President Hu Jintao on Sunday after attending church."]
2. "Producers of 'Hancock' don't understand what subtitles are": By Mike Baab of Rottin' in Denmark.
["'Hancock' is a Will Smith movie. Which means it's the kind of movie you describe with the name of the star in it, not the director, or the writer, or the genre, or the plot. It's the cinematic equivalent of a Nike symbol billboard on an interstate: It exists only to maintain the brand of its main dialogue-sayer. We all know that if action movies were pie recipes, the equivalent of 'preheat oven' would be 'open with action sequence'. The first 45 seconds of Will Smith Crumble throw us into a high-speed chase in LA, where gun-toting youths have stolen a SUV. Smith intercepts them and has a wee chat before impaling their car on the top of a building. The car thieves, all Asian, speak their native language for the first few minutes. Look at the subtitles. And the movie inserts grammatical errors into the subtitles to make them sound like Asian stereotypes."]
3. "Notes On A Sex “Scandal”": House contributor Lauren Wissot's latest contribution to Spout Blog.
["In celebration of my latest hero Max Mosley, son of Britain’s prewar fascist leader and head of Formula One racing, who refused to passively be set up in a “Nazi orgy” sting operation by the shameful “The News of the World,” who bravely took his invasion of privacy battle to court where he proudly invoked his inalienable S&M right to be spanked – and won! – I say, here’s to you, my fellow perv. And the next time you’re in the States the caning’s on the house (of domination. But feel free to tip a portion of that 120 grand in damages awarded). So with that case now out of the way, let’s revisit the original British, S&M sex Scandal."]
4. "Hot And Hedy": The illustrious Ms. Morgan on the ecstatic Ms. Lamarr.
["Though some consider this film a novelty, a ye olden cinematic curio of Hollywood losing its nut over an Austrian import or simply a great place to watch Hedy Lamarr cavort around completely naked, Ecstasy (made in 1932) is really much, much more. An intense, beautiful (and extremely taboo at the time) study of a young woman's sexuality, the picture actually gets things right, either via magnificent, naturalistic erotic imagery or moments of blunt explanation. Without demonizing its subject (though the film does moralize), without overly squishy emotionality, and without words (mostly), Gustav Machaty's Ecstasy explains some simultaneously simple and convoluted facts of life. Women get bored. Women daydream. They desire sex. They enjoy sex. And if they find it, they'll have sex, even if they're a little scared, or the man is over-eager, or they're afraid of the resulting guilt (which seems worse today -- in this Miley Cyrus/virgin/whore/Hester Prynne/fuck me now let me throw a rock at you society). No rocks for Hedy, Ecstasy is actually nice to its sexed up lass."]
5. "Security guru describes DNS flaw, says Internet Armageddon narrowly averted": From TG Daily.
["The Internet relies on trust, but what if all that trust comes tumbling down? That’s exactly the problem noted security researcher Dan Kaminsky described today in his Black Hat talk about DNS cache poisoning. Several months ago, Kaminsky discovered a vulnerability in the DNS protoctol that allowed bogus name information to be sent to other servers and desktop computers – in essence hackers could redirect web surfers, chat clients and even email servers to machines of their choosing. Specific details about the vulnerability and the ways to exploit it have been kept secret until today …"]
Quote of the Day: Steven Wright
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Mr. Smith is shocked his Porno got an 'R.'
Clip of the Day: The trailer for Jonathan Demme's latest, Rachel Getting Married. (Hattip: Stephen Cone)
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Links for the Day (August 7th, 2008)
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2 comments:
Judging by that photo, Kevin Smith seems to be auditioning for the Bad Lieutenant remake...
See, here's the thing, numbnuts, Il Douche -- you permanently ceded the moral high ground (and with it the right to criticize China on its human rights record) when you started a bloody murderous bullshit war and started bundling people off to "black sites" all over the world and Gitmo in our backyard. The fact that you do not understand this does not surprise me, but does make me angry enough to shit carpet tacks. Painful for me, absolutely nada to you.
January cannot come soon enough.
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