Trivial Thoughts

I’m up early, but that’s nothing new. Six hours of sleep and that’s it. I’m wide awake and ready for the day. Or, until it’s time for me take a nap, of course.

We had good sleeping weather last night; it rained most of the day and the evening turned quite cool. Cool enough for me to search for and find my flannel pajamas. And those comfy pajamas quickly became a cat magnet last night; Boo made herself at home on my lap, making reading somewhat difficult, which resulted in some napping, which in turn resulted in my waking up early this morning. Cause and effect.

More on the New York Times; I read that not only are the columnists now free to be read by all, but the archives of the newspapers have been opened as well. And I heard an interview with a Times spokesperson who indicated that the paper had increased readership of their electronic version by some 100+%. The pay-per-read columnists had been bringing in $10 million per year but they feel they can recoup that amount in advertising fees.

Now is the time for local newspapers to look at the Times business model; learn something from it and stop depending on full page ads for chiropractors for revenue. Will that happen? Not a chance.

I guess I’m going to have to buy the book, Web of Deceit, by Barry Lando. The library wouldn’t appreciate my highlighting or underlining and this is a book that practically begs you to mark it up.

I just finished reading about the run-up to the first Gulf war. To make their case for invasion, Bush 1/Baker had to show that the Arab states were allied with them and to do that they used money for leverage. They paid off Hosni Mubarak of Egypt with $$$billions and he quickly switched sides. They even invited Syria to join them, paying them to send 18,000 troops. Those troops stayed in Saudi Arabia for the duration of the war. Every Arab state that turned on Saddam was paid to do so.

When we were watching the movie, The Prestige, the other night, I was irritated once again by the obnoxious anti-copy message, “You wouldn’t steal a purse…” a trailer that seems to be included on most DVD’s these days. By the time that thing has finished playing; I’m ready to find something to steal, just to spite them! The film industry needs to learn some basic human psychology if they want to be effective. Maybe they could film clips of prisoners being tortured, whipped and beaten while chained in dungeon; while a voice-over warns, “Copying a DVD? Don’t even think about it. This could be you!” I’m sure that would work as a deterrent.

It really doesn’t make sense; the film industry is filled with bright people who know how to manipulate the general population. That’s what they do! So how did this trailer come to be made so poorly? They probably assigned it to a lawyer who was already working on a retainer and they assigned the project to a law clerk who then gave it their younger brother or sister to produce it because they owned a Mac. Voila!