Back Again

Back again from another quick business trip. Items:

• Here are a whole bunch of mashups. Some of my faves are Benny Goodman/Beastie Boys, Sex Pistols/My Milkshake, and P!nk/Nirvana. For some reason, Without Vader is only on Odeo.
• Wikipedia entry on the Essjay controversy, in which a college dropout named Ryan Jordan is found out to have been presenting himself as a Ph.D.-holding theologian for purposes of adjudicating Wikipedia disputes.
• The U.S. State Department has come out as pro-Borat. Int'l Herald Tribune excerpts: Baron Cohen, whose bumbling Borat has vexed the Kazakh government and rocketed to fame with his film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," became a victim when Kazakhstan took action against his satirical Web site. Specifically, it took control of the registration of .kz Internet domains in 2005 and revoked the Borat domain, since relocated, because it deemed his site offensive, the report said. The movie depicting Borat's pseudo-documentary wanderings across the U.S. became an unlikely hit and earned Baron Cohen a Golden Globe award. It also generated complaints that he duped his American subjects into making racist and sexist remarks and portrayed Kazakhs in an unflattering light. Borat, for example, asserted that Kazakhs are addicted to horse urine, enjoy shooting dogs, view rape and incest as respectable hobbies and are fond of "running of the Jew" festivals. Baron Cohen is an observant Jew. The State Department report made no mention of the contents of the film or Web site but said Baron Cohen's banishment was symptomatic of repression in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in central Asia. Full State Dept. report here. Kazakhstan-specific comments here.
• A couple of new blogs for the blogroll... Techyum (from the NSFW Violet Blue) and, via Techyum, Bedazzled!.
• Peanuts: A Comic Book History. Charles Schulz has said that he developed Charlie Brown's character largely from his own joys and insecurities (I paraphrase); Interesting how these two covers feature Charlie Schulz/Brown trying to capture the image of Snoopy.