Tuesday, June 27, 2006

More Recommended Reading

Here's Dana Milbank on how ridiculous the proposed amendment about flag-burning is.

You know, everyone says this is an attempt by Republicans to play to their "base" and of some Democrats to try to woo that same group. I think if I were part of that constituency, I'd be insulted by my leaders pandering to me over something so far down on my list of what's important.

• Posted at 11:14 AM · LINK

Recommended Reading

On this matter of newspapers printing information about secret government programs, the best article I've read — or at least, the one I most agree with — is this piece by Glenn Greenwald. As usual, government officials are screaming "it's anti-American" whenever the press refuses to spin the news their way.

I would also call your attention to an article by Matt Yglesias. It basically says that no matter how much you think the "Global War on Terror" is costing us in terms of dollars, your estimate is way low.

• Posted at 10:46 AM · LINK

Today's Video Links

Today, we have a ton of links for you but you'll have to hurry. Over on Google Video, a number of the clips that ordinarily cost a buck or two per download are free "today only." You can, for example, watch eight half-hours of Rocky and Bullwinkle. You can enjoy the adventures of Roger Ramjet, Felix the Cat or The Mighty Hercules.

The non-animated section includes a couple hundred episodes of The Charlie Rose Show. You might enjoy the interview with Stephen Sondheim or the chat with Dick Cavett or the conversation with Jay Leno or the hour with Donald Rumsfeld. In fact, if you scroll through the list of Charlie Rose episodes, you're bound to find a couple you'd like to watch.

I don't know how they're defining "today" so I don't know how long you'll be able to access all this stuff for free. I do know that you probably won't be able to watch it all today but some of you may figure out that you can use KeepVid to download the clips for later viewing. Copy the URL of the clip you crave into the appropriate window and you'll be able to save it to your harddisk as an FLV file. (You'll need an FLV player but there are plenty of free ones around...like this one, for instance.)

(Quick tip: If it doesn't work, go to the URL you pasted in and delete whatever search terms may have been appended to the web address. They usually start with an ampersand. Delete the ampersand and everything to the right of it and see if that works. And if it doesn't, just remember that Google Video has done free days before and may well do them again.)

In the meantime, here's yet another McDonald's commercial. This one is only interesting because it features the great comedy actor Frank Nelson. I was fortunate to work with Mr. Nelson a year or two before he left us and I wrote that story up and posted it here. He's the guy in the conductor outfit in this spot...

• Posted at 12:29 AM · LINK