Below are simple links to other interesting stuff I've come across on the web in the last day or two; they may or may not concern literature or photography, or indeed the arts at all. You can click here to learn more about how I compile this list and what software I use, if you're interested.

Dems: "We are freaking sick and tired of neocon scare tactics"
So the Democrats are finally doing a little fighting back these days, after a week of the most hate-filled nutjobs of the GOP deciding that it's now their job to violently oppose anything that Obama does, no matter what it is, merely on ideological grounds. Here's one, for example: They're now starting to complain more and more about such neocon war-hawks as Dick Cheney, who has been running around telling anyone who will listen that closing Guantanamo Bay will directly lead to another 9/11. Of COURSE Cheney is going to see it like this, they argue, precisely because he's one of those dangerous bitter sociopaths who sees all of humanity as in a perpetual state of warfare, as an unending series of allies to be manipulated and enemies to be exterminated. You can't let him suck you into his perpetual war, they argue, which is precisely what he's been trying to do to the American public this week; don't even argue with people like him, they say, but just flat-out reject their message.

Entire run of 'Bloom County' to be reprinted in lavish new books
Insanely great news today -- the greatest comic strip of all time, Berke Breathed's '80s classic "Bloom County," is finally getting the royal republishing treatment, with the entire run getting printed for the very first time over the course of five lavish volumes. Plus, there will be information pages inserted within the books as well, explaining the actual obscure '80s political things going on that are being made fun of in those particular pages. All right! I know already what I want for Christmas!

Streaming video is turning movie bootlegging into unstoppable force
Has the "Napster Moment" finally arrived for the movie industry? The NYT has a fascinating article up today, explaining how the new sophistication in streaming video online is making movie-bootlegging an almost unstoppable force, something that is eating into studio profits in a way that downloaded Torrent files never could. How it works: A full-length movie will be posted YouTube-style on a server in a lax country like China; then an embedded version will be placed on a thousand legitimate websites that people can find through Google searches, all of them easy to shut down or change names each time they get busted, allowing the end user to watch the movie that exact moment instead of having to download a gigabyte-sized file first. Also, did you know that maybe up to an entire third of the audience for "Heroes" is watching it each week illegally in one way or another? You should really read this article; it's the most interesting thing I've read in weeks.

100 million Flickr photos have now been geotagged
Incredible news from photo-sharing service Flickr.com today; they've now had users add a "geotag" (or info on where that image was taken) to over 100 million photos, two-thirds of them public tags and one-third private (only to be seen by that user's friends and family). And unbelievably enough, this still only counts for a paltry three percent of all images now at Flickr altogether; yes, that's right, the service now has over three billion freaking images as part of its permanent collection, which when you add all the meta information makes it -easily- the largest and most powerful image database in the entirety of human history. Not bad for a goofy startup less than ten years old, that was once in danger of closing.

Does Rush Limbaugh have only a 21-percent approval rating among Americans?
It comes from a research firm with an admittedly liberal bias, which is why I question the absolute veracity of it; but a new poll claims that fascist talk-show nutjob Rush Limbaugh has only a 21-percent approval rating among all Americans, a full seven points below Obama's old muckraking minister Jeremiah Wright. And even worse, they claim that even among just Republicans, he still only gets a 44-percent approval rating, versus the 66 percent conservatives give FOX News. It's essentially what I've been saying over and over since the election -- that Rush and his hate-filled ilk speak for only a minority of people in the US anymore, but still manage to dominate the national conversation anyway by being louder than everyone else, meaner than everyone else, spending more money than everyone else, and engaging in more dirty tricks than anyone else. It is only and solely because of this that Rush has such a large voice, not because he represents the views of a lot of people.

Video: Another astounding fake '70s WATCHMEN news reel is released
For those who don't know, one of the things the producers of the upcoming highly anticipated WATCHMEN film adaptation are doing is creating just hours upon hours of original supplementary material for the eventual DVD, and to use as viral advertising for the movie right now; they're essentially taking their cues off Alan Moore's original comic books, which included in each issue a significant amount of non-comic supplemental material too, things like excerpts from one of the characters' autobiography, an issue of a right-wing publication featured heavily in the storyline, etc. Anyway, so here's the second fake '70s newsreel they've now released, in this case a supposed government propaganda film about the storyline's famous 1977 "Keene Act" outlawing masked vigilantes. It's UTTERLY ASTOUNDING in its loving attention to detail, including the warped soundtrack and fluttering edges of actual '70s newsreels; it's stuff like this that's getting me very excited indeed about the movie itself.

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