Lex Ferenda

Fred von Lohmann, the EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation] attorney who handled the file-sharing case, said he’d rather see the EFF battle in the courts than before Congress, noting that the judiciary can be an important place where laws get shaped.

“We have armies of lobbyists now watching in Washington and the states,” he said. “We don’t really have that in the court system where just as important laws are made.”

Pretty bad grammar for the Associated Press. But an important point from an interesting article (via Findlaw.com). I like to think that that it’s not just lobbying and caselaw that matters (we put that to rest quite some time ago), but I suspect that nitpick of mine is directed towards the hapless APer rather than the EFFer.

Do what you can (in a sustainable way, of course!); but An Inconvenient Truth is worth a few moments of your precious time. If you’re in the North American bit of the world, go to a theatre and see it. If you’re in Europe, start contacting your local cinema now and wonder whether they will list it in September when released. The more calls and emails they get, the more chance that this documentary will make it onto screens across Ireland and elsewhere.

It’s a strange concept of a movie alright. I’d say about 75% of it is the Gore slideshow (on Keynote, of course) broken up by personal and background information (from Gore, speaking either to himself or to a silent interviewer) - and not always that seamlessly. Basically it is a brilliant science/politics lecture taking the Trojan horse route into popcornland. There’s a really nice touch at the end where the credits are broken up by suggestions on things to do to work for better policies. This is no ordinary film; not even an ordinary documentary. See it.

If my pleas are not enough, aspoke.com, the clever little company designing laptop skins, will give you a free skin if you either link to their offer or send a ticket stub. I’m doing both (I don’t actually want the skin, though; shining iBook is pretty enough already) Consider linking to them anyway, even if you don’t want the skin. It’s a good idea.