short fat guy online

I share Jaquandor‘s dismay at this article on MSNBC.com: Amid increased hijack warnings, air marshalls are being pulled from cross-country and international flights—those most likely to be hijacked, by the way—because of, of all things, concerns that providing them hotel rooms is too costly!   [7/30 9:47 AM]
    Update: Just saw this headline from the Detroit News: “Terror warnings prompt rethink of cutbacks”.  The article concludes with a Homeland Security spokesman stating “There are no plans to cut any of the estimated several thousand air marshal jobs.”

Detroit and Portland OR will become battlegrounds in the War on Terrorism, as the ACLU files joint lawsuits in hopes of having key sections of the USA PATROIT Act declared unconstitutional.  According to Oregon’s Statesman Journal, “The lawsuit will seek to overturn Section 215, which allows the FBI broader access to personal records under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”
    The article continues, “The lawsuit, to be filed in Detroit by the ACLU, the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and several other groups, seeks to overturn provisions that allow the government wide latitude to seize records, books and papers in investigations of international terrorism, said Mo Abdrabboh, a Dearborn, Mich., lawyer who is on the ACLU?s at-large board.
    “The area?s large Arab-American community is a major reason for filing the lawsuit in Detroit, he said.
    “[...] ‘I want to see awareness out of this,’ said Abed Ayoub, president of the Detroit chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, one of several civil rights groups partnering in the legal challenge.
    “Ayoub said he hopes the lawsuits would result in ‘a sense of relief, a sense that somebody is standing up for our rights.’”

A 95-second taste of Return of the King is available at The One Ring.net.  Someone has provided them with this QuickTime MOV file (perhaps off the supplements of the upcoming Two Towers DVD), which provides brief glimpses of some impressive looking battle scenes.  (Love the shot of Shadowfax charging up the ramparts!)  Sweet exquisite torture, bring on December 17!   [12:48 PM]
    Update: The party-poopers at New Line have forced The One Ring.net to stop sharing the file.  I knew I should’ve downloaded the high-quality 22 MB version!

I heard some bad news and some good news today.  Both of it about Steven Spielberg TV projects, both of it old.  It happened a few days ago, but I’m only reading about it today.  Duel, Spielberg’s first standout movie (and a great double-bill with Jaws), was to be released on DVD in about two weeks, after over a year’s delay.  Unfortunately, on July 24, Universal announced another indefinite delay.  No one knows why, especially since the artwork and extra features had been announced.
    However, tempering that frustrating news is the heartening information, announced July 21, that Tom Hanks, Spielberg, and HBO are coming together to make a companion miniseries to Band of Brothers (according to The Hollywood Reporter, by way of Spielbergfilms.com).  This time the focus is on the fighting in the Pacific.  I’m underwhelmed by the title, that being “Untitled World War II Pacific Theater Project”; but if the miniseries is done with the same care, quality, and attention to detail as Band of Brothers it should be most excellent.

I’ve only given out my pet Fish’s e-mail address a couple times, but, amazingly he still gets lots of spam.  This gave me the idea for an experiment.  I’ve created a new e-mail account.  I’m only going to mention it once, here.  And I want to see how soon and how often the pathetic bottom-feeders glom on to it.
    Come and get it boys.   [7/15/2003 10:36 PM]
    Update: That proves it.  Spammers are shameless.  I got my first e-mails to the account today, July 29, two weeks after creating it.  The first letter comes from sunsky21@freechal.com, which makes it both the winner and loser.  Congratulations there, I guess.
    Having “successfully” completed the experiment, I will be deleting the “anyone-who-spams-this-eats-poo” e-mail account.