Spam comments have been flooding in lately, a dozen per whack, four or five times daily. It’s possible, while keeping up with them, I’ve accidentally deleted a comment or two. So I’ve enabled a very aggressive, intelligent spam filtering service. Experienced, sophisticated WordPress users praise this spam-stopper highly, so I’m hoping it kills all the bad stuff and leaves the good stuff.
Year: 2007
Primordial Soup, Anyone?
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Friday’s News Hour on PBS had a fascinating segment on some oceanic research that was conducted by scientist J. Craig Venter. He’s one person whose motives I don’t feel the need to question. Although it should be noted that Venter is controversial because he competed against, rather than cooperated with, the federal government’s Human Genome project.
The Name is Plame. Valerie Plame.
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Valerie Plame Wilson gave sworn testimony yesterday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. This should answer any lingering questions about Plame’s status as a former covert CIA operative. She is no longer a covert CIA operative, of course, only because her cover was blown by people with security clearance.
I didn’t bother editing this video clip, so it starts and ends somewhat abruptly. I included Georgia Republican Representative Lynn Westmoreland because it’s funny to see that he appears to be a bit smitten by Plame, and also because he made a memorable appearance on The Colbert Report last year.
An Audience of One
Sometimes the story behind something is more interesting than the something itself. And there is no better example of that than the independently produced documentary An Audience of One, premiering this weekend at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, TX.
Made by Mike Jacobs, the something that An Audience of One is about is described as…
A Pentecostal minister receives a vision from God to create an epic science fiction movie based on the bible story of Joseph, sending he and his followers on a journey of extreme faith.
Click here for a 10-minute audio interview on NPR with the director of the documentary, and the preacher turned wannabe director.
The trailer that’s at the link provided above for the festival is in MPEG4 and Quicktime, which are both problematical formats, so I’ll post it here in friendly Adobe Flash video.
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Classical Crossover?
Click here for a brief NPR report on what is called in the intro a surprising increase in the sale of classical music. After hearing the report I realized that’s not what is really happening.
According to the story, downloaded music accounts for much of the increase. But what’s being downloaded? Complete Beethoven symphonies?
As explained in the report, Sting and Josh Groban are now categorized as “classical crossover artists”, and their sales are being counted along with traditional classical music. That’s silly. Another name associated with the bump up in sales is André Bocelli. His popularity is thanks to the same sort of fan that bought CDs by The Three Tenors. None of these entertainers will add to the base of traditional classical music aficianados.
Dems Cautioned: Beware of Colbert!
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The Democratic Caucus chairman, Rep. Rahm Emanuel from Illinois, has cautioned freshman legislators to stay away from Stephen Colbert. Emanuel’s concern, apparently, is they’ll be made to look ridiculous. Keith Olbermann comments, and provides a bunch of sample interviews lifted from ComedyCentral.com.