See y'all in a week or so, after I get back from Austin, TX.

2:42:20 PM     leave/read comments []

Check it out:

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's happened. The president went...

SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration and say nobody said that.

SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...

Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.

Mr. FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says `some have argued that the nu'--this is you speaking--`that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: And--and...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: It was close to imminent.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I've--I've tried to be precise, and I've tried to be accurate. I'm s--suppose I've...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm. It--my view of--of the situation was that he--he had--we--we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that--that we believed and we still do not know--we will know.

12:47:16 PM    

Says what it does; does what it says.

The archives, one week at a time!

4:56:51 PM     leave/read comments []

HEY!

Go listen to my new song, sung entirely in Legolashian by my friend, Tööct Cløcckt!

A Legoland Folksong (Sung in the Legolashian language)

And be sure to take a look and listen around MacIdol, the grooviest GarageBand site around!

If the streaming MP3 link won't work for you, a regular MP3 can be found at my MacIdol site.

2:22:34 PM     leave/read comments []

Gee, what a surprise.

2:01:23 PM     leave/read comments []

Updated: Let's reform SXSW's no-photos, no-electricity policies. Update: jonl says, "They changed the rule - people can plug in. They just told me to announce it on my 11am panel. Yay!"

At SXSW, every speakers' table has this sign on it: NO UNAUTHORIZED VIDEOTAPING OR PHOTOGRAPHY IS ALLOWED IN PANEL ROOMS AS A COURTESY TO SPEAKERS.

This is a really silly idea, one that violates the burgeoning norm of tech conferences, which is to aggressively capture and retransmit the happenings at conferences as they are underway, and I think that we should do something about it.

Every speaker should open her or his panel or talk with the following:

[First, pick up sign and place it face down on the table]

I am hereby authorizing you to take as many pictures and video of this presentation as you care to. I have travelled a great distance, at great expense, to say something and be heard. I would be deeply grateful to you for helping me to spread what I have to say.

I would be further grateful if your photos and videos of this presentaiton were distributed as widely as possible under a Creative Commons license.

Thank you.

If speakers forget to do this, someone in the audience should stand up at the start of the proceedings and say, "That sign says we're not allowed to take photos and videos without your permission. We'd like to share what you have to say with others -- may we have your permission to do so?"

There's another problem at SXSW, which is that the conference center charges an arm and a leg to conference organizers who want to use the AC outlets in the hallways. SXSW doesn't have an arm and a leg to spare, so they haven't paid the extortionate sum.

The result of this is that red-jacketed "security guards" spend all their time going around, ordering paying attendees -- again, people who have travelled to Austin at great personal expense -- to unplug their laptops from the wall or face a $90 fine. This is the mingiest, rottenest way to make conference attendees feel welcome, and again, we should do something about it.

The Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau's email address is visitorcenter@austintexas.org, and their phone number is (800)926-2282.

Is there anyone from the Austin papers reading this? It would be grand to put someone from the convention center management on the spot about this: "Did you really pay your staff to walk the corridors of the conference center and order working people who had plugged in their laptops so that they could keep up with their jobs while visiting Austin to unplug or face a fine? Do you always do this? Is this in keeping with your remit as an ambassador for Austin to our visitors?"

I have a great time at SXSW every year, and the conference organizers do a tremendous job of putting on a show. But someone needs to take the conference center management to task for this unacceptable policy. Link [Boing Boing]

1:59:22 PM