Slashdot Mirror

What newspaper do you read?

If by "US media", you are talking only about television, then I have to agree.
The only time I watch news on TV is when I'm on the treadmill at the gym. I assure you that CNN had noted the Jade Rabbit mission before the launch, during the launch, and after the landing. Nothing in-depth, but what can you say about the mission anyway?

Here's some links (below) from the Atlanta Journal. I think they did a decent job of reporting on it. It's similar to the coverage in most mainstream newspapers.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.ajc.com/videos/news...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/inter...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/top-n...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/top-n...
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.ajc.com/videos/news...

What newspaper do you read?

If by "US media", you are talking only about television, then I have to agree.
The only time I watch news on TV is when I'm on the treadmill at the gym. I assure you that CNN had noted the Jade Rabbit mission before the launch, during the launch, and after the landing. Nothing in-depth, but what can you say about the mission anyway?

Here's some links (below) from the Atlanta Journal. I think they did a decent job of reporting on it. It's similar to the coverage in most mainstream newspapers.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.ajc.com/videos/news...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/inter...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/top-n...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/top-n...
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.ajc.com/videos/news...

What newspaper do you read?

If by "US media", you are talking only about television, then I have to agree.
The only time I watch news on TV is when I'm on the treadmill at the gym. I assure you that CNN had noted the Jade Rabbit mission before the launch, during the launch, and after the landing. Nothing in-depth, but what can you say about the mission anyway?

Here's some links (below) from the Atlanta Journal. I think they did a decent job of reporting on it. It's similar to the coverage in most mainstream newspapers.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.ajc.com/videos/news...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/inter...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/top-n...
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/top-n...
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.accessatlanta.com/v...
http://www.ajc.com/videos/news...

Well.. I know he doesn't like others profiting off cover songs. He refused to let Jason Castro's audition of "Crazy" onto American Idol. http://www.accessatlanta.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/accessatlanta/idol/entries/2008/02/15/215_nigel_lythg.html

I go to nursing school. I'd like to go caving more often but there's that problem with nursing school. I love my dog. I work on a bamalance. I try not to explode.

We used to call it "DFO" on the bamalance. Ask one of them's auntee "What happened to him"
"Awwwwwwwn know, he just done fell out!"

Uh....Jaydot here.....put out a house fire every now then, go to a plane crash once in awhile, and have been known to patch up a busted up azz in the back of a bamalance........
I currently by Wesley's extra drugs.....
Plus....I'm up 3 cases of beer on DIB bets...
Two Wires...battin' a .1000

The Bamalance is there to have extra equipment on hand for the EMT's until a transport unit arrives...most fire department has there own first respond unit. Offer them to come out for $500.00 with a unit. All fire department are looking for some type of fund raises. These trucks have all it takes to keep someone stable.

http://www.accessatlanta.com/news/content/movies/n ews/0505/LVstarwars7.html

There are laws against such activities. But as long as a bunch of corrupt, self-serving, unconstitutional cowards are in charge, no real action against white-collar crimes will ever be taken.

Or, to put it differently: As long as white-collar criminals are in charge, white-collar crimes will be tolerated.

What I don't understand is why ordinary people tolerate and defend Bush's actions. After all, it is you and I who pay the bill at the end of the day.

That's an extremely poor taste joke considering that a lot of innocent civilians are about to be killed. I'm sure your attitude would be a *whole* lot different if you actually understood what the Bush administration's reasons are.

After reading the last two posts I think slashdot is being colonized by Crunchy Cons.

-There is no problem that can not be solved by lowering your expectations.

By the way, "Gil Bates" would've worked better ;)

According to this, it appears that some members of the RIAA have also embraced file sharing - but only as a tool for gathering marketing data.

It looks like in less than three days NASA has manged to get over 1000 applications.

From the articles that I have read on this very suspect claim it hints that they used the same method as was used with Dolly. I did my Senior Thesis on Geron, the company that purchased the rights to the methode that cloned Dolly; therefore, I have a fare understanding of what is involved with Nuclear Transfer. Although I am not an expert and have never attempted the process in a lab, I have read enough to know that it is a terrible idea to try this on humans at this point.

There is a easy to understand FAQ on the Roslin Institute web site written by the people that actually cloned Dolly. Here are some interesting highlights:

Are clone embryos like IVF and normal pregnancies?
Not so far. The scientists at the Roslin Institute, who pioneered this work, have repeatedly found that the clone foetuses grow much larger than normal ones, and there is a much higher chance of the pregnancy failing, of stillbirth, or of forced Caesarean sections. Dolly was the one successful pregnancy of more than 277 embryos.

What do the experts think? "I think you are always going to run the risk of having aging DNA," says Professor Lord Robert Winston, an IVF pioneer. "I would hate to think of a child of mine being cloned because I think it would be very likely he would have an accelerated aging process." Dr Jamie Grifo, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at New York University, says: "Cloning is no better than any of the other treatments that are out there. A biological child is the husband's sperm, the wife's egg. A clone is not a biological child." Dr David Stevens, of the Christian Medical and Dental Society, asks: "Are we really willing to sacrifice hundreds of embryos - developing human beings - to make one baby who may suffer monstrous consequences?"

So, there are two very important points that must be stressed. The first is that there is a high percentage probability of genetic defect supported by further experiments. Think of the threat of genetic abnormalities in a fetus that managed to survive as much higher than if you had children with immediate family members.

The second is that each cell has an "age" that is determined by the number of times that a cell has divided. If you use DNA from adult cells that have divided many times, than all of the cells cloned from that DNA will be older. A cell can only dived around 50 times before it dies at which point you reach the Hayflick Limit. Although there are ways to prolong the life of cell lines similar to the way cancer spreads through a body, I doubt that this group of individuals thought of adding telomeres back to the end of the chromosomes that would be used to clone a human baby.

Here's another Gollum story. www.accessatlanta.com/ajc

The criminal and the victim are one and the same

It's just a bunch of over-paid yuppies with too much time on their hands. "Where else can we push our ads into?" Somehow corporations think that marketing will fix all the problems with their product. The scary part is that I suppose that view is justified, to a point.

Regarding the over-paid yuppies with too much time on their hands, it's the same with lawyers, but I digress.

...the last few paragraphs of the posted article?

Wyman says he first used the name onstage in 1963. "In 1964 I adapted his name, and changed mine by deed poll," he writes in a footnote.

Me, I was born Jan. 11, 1961.

What I need now is a lawyer to ask Mr. Siegel that his client stop using a name I have claim to by several years.

From the lawyer's letter:
"If in fact your employee's given legal name is Bill Wyman (a fact we would insist be reasonably demonstrated to us), we then request that a prominent disclaimer accompany every reference to your writer's name, clearly indicating that your columnist is not the same Bill Wyman who was a member of the Rolling Stones."

It seems to me, given that William George Perks changed his name to "Bill Wyman" in 1963 (legally, in 1964) this paragraph would be more powerful if we make a few changes and send it back:

"If in fact your client's given legal name is Bill Wyman (a fact we would insist be reasonably demonstrated to us), we then request that a prominent disclaimer accompany every reference to your client's name, clearly indicating that your client is not the same Bill Wyman who is a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution."

hsiegel@pryorcashman.com? Phone number (212) 326-0100? The letter from the lawyers has this info right at the top of the page.

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/1102/14wym an.html

This article isn't even about cybersquatting! It is about some guy who happens to work for this newspaper and who happens to sometimes write about the Rolling Stones. The musical Wyman wants the columnist wyman to put a discalimer on everything he writes that he is in fact NOT the musical Wyman! How ridiculous!

I read about a truck driver in Germany named "Adolph Hittler" who actually lost his job because of his name.

Btw, here is a direct linke to the article: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/1102/14wym an.html which is in the original post, but it is sort of obfustucated.

Here's a list of the sites that were blocked by default that I had to unblock manually:

• Florida Gulf Coast University www.fgcu.edu
• NoodleTools.com www.noodletools.com (I can understand this one a little, though in this case "noodle" means "brain")
• Access Atlanta www.accessatlanta.com
• Inclusive Scouting www.inclusivescouting.com
• Yale University's Law Web www.yale.edu/lawweb
• Scentiments.com www.scentiments.com
• Pasadena Public Library LibraryTeens LibraryTeens
• Pepperdine's Graduate school faculty pages gsep.pepperdine.edu
• Scouting for all www.scoutingforall.com

People who back such laws as this and oppose the recent ruling concerning the "under God" portion of the "Pledge of Allegience" are at odds with America's diverse morality and (non)spirituality. To include a reference to God in the Pledge begs the question "Which God?" or "Whose?". Likewise when legislating morality the question becomes "Whose morals?".

Because nearly every commercial filtering system is protected by "trade secrets" it becomes impossible to expect and answer to the above questions, and illegal to discover them on your own.

Are expected to purchase software that controls our childrens access to information without knowing what it's really doing? Absolutely, and if this law is upheld it'd be illegal to choose otherwise.

Don't entirely know what it blocks and doesn't. Don't know why. Blocking software companies won't tell us. Illegal to find out. Illegal to not install. Likely illegal to circumvent.

Orwellian. Yep.

As an aside:

"Protecting children" is a convenient way to get government to move, and it's a red herring. No American politician is going to come out and say "I'm anti-children" or "I think children should look at porn and the taxpayers should foot the bill.". Evoking "protecting children" is just a carrot (or whip if you'd rather) for people who have an agenda to wave in front of legislators.

"Protecting children" also sells tires, and Volvos, and antibacterial soap, and milk, and private schools, and cell phones, and guns...

-dameron

Sometimes not very good guards or very secure locations. Fulton County, Atlanta lost 67 memory cards last week. (http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/election02 /09fultonvotes.html)

Here are some links re: those episodes. Nothing really earth-shattering in them though: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/0512spaces .html

http://www.wingfieldfans.org/douglas_wilson/articl e.asp?pubid=58

http://www.usatoday.com/life/llead.htm

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,233279~3~~,00.h tml

In sad news today, Run DMC's Jam Master Jay died today at the tender age of 37. Truely a slashdot icon, he will be missed. Gunshot wounds really suck... until you die... then they don't hurt anymore.

R.I.P Jason Mizell (1965-2002)

The US government is not willing to tell anyone what it knows about Iraq. It cannot reveal certain information for security purposes. It might reveal more than it can afford to reveal.

Riiiight. Can you think of any information they'd have about Iraq that they couldn't release to the American people? What exactly could be wrong with them saying "We have confirmed intelligence that says Iraq currently has fully operational ICBMs" or even suitcase nukes? There is no such information. They've never even made that claim. The most he's done is refer to some British and European reports speculating that given the right materials, Sadaam could produce a weapon in six months. He's never established ANY kind of connection between terrorists and Iraq whatsoever.

The funny thing is, even a German Marxist can make a better case for war against Iraq than the Bush Administration. Why is that? Could be a number of things. It could be the administration is inept when it comes to communications. Worse, it could be that they're deft at it, and they realize that the sort of waterd-down content-free soundbites they've been feeding the population actually work. But it also could be hidden motives on their part. Sometimes you have a hard time making a case when there's a case to be made, because the reasons for doing things have little to do with the easily made case.

Finally, I hope we both get modded offtopic (but maybe informative).

While the jab at dubya is something of a troll (though you should read this and this before you dismiss the sentiment outright), the part about collecting the tax is fairly insightful. Exactly how do you set up a system for tracking this sort of thing? Or do they just plan to dump the burden on merchants everywhere, and sock it to them if they don't comply?

The jurisdiction issues also make my head spin. I can't see any reason why, if I sell from California, Conneticut has any business regulating how I do business....

It doesn't seem to have been mentioned in this thread, but the US Supreme Court heard arguments just this week on the issue of constantly extending copyrights.

See this and, of course, Slashdot it.

Back when my family was using a satellite dish (C-band, mind you), we used a in-the-clear antenna to get our locals. We live in the middle of the city and couldn't get any reception for our CBS affilate in town. Thanks to these laws, we couldn't enjoy our favorite shows on CBS!

Thankful my mother has cable now and we enjoy that but my poor father is on the road with a digital dish. That's his only source of entertainment and since he does travel around, he'd like some stability in his life. He can't get the station of his choice because the current market he's end feels they'll be cheated.

Why, my father is paying the money for the networks when his subscription. The dish companies have to license the networks to begin with, I believe. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to distribute the licensing fees/revenue sharing between Ass End, AK; Savannah, GA; or Philadelphia, PA. There are ways, it's just that sometimes the bottom line is all anyone sees, that they forget the little guy that is paying for the bottom line!

And yes, there's ways to circumvent local/national feeds. WXIA of Atlanta is having to do it for dish users that want to see "The West Wing" tonight. They could probably figure out better ways if they put their mind to it.

First, the standard disclaimers: my comments are my own and should not be taken as necessarily representative of the GA Tech administration.

There's a much better and more accurate article on the topic at the AJC. Take the AP version with a grain of salt.

The fact that GA Tech uses software to detect possible cheating should not come as a surprise to anyone. Such systems have been in use at many schools across the country for many different disciplines besides CS. Nor should anyone be disturbed by the use of such systems: their purpose is to detect possible cheating, which according the AJC article was clearly verboten to the students in the class.

In the real world, a completely different set of rules may exist, but the fact remains that if your boss tells you he wants you to do something on your own, then you'd damn well better do it on your own. When a teacher instructs a student to perform a task on his own, he so instructs not to make life more difficult for the student, but to ensure that the student is capable of independently executing the skills necessary for the completion of the assignment. When that student eventually enters the real world, he has demonstrated the ability to perform the skills to be expected of him in the real world, so when he then has the ability to collaborate with his peers, he can actually contribure to the group's performance. A student who has always relied on others to get by will offer minimal assistance to a group and will typically act as a hinderance.

So sure, in the real world you won't be fired for collaborating with your peers, but you will be if you can't get anything done without collaborating with your peers.

Hm. Yes.

To be very precise: After looking at the available information, much of which conflicts or is filled with peculiar elements which do not mesh with the official story, it seems evident that numerous parties other than the terrorist body may have been aware before hand what was going to happen, did nothing to prevent it, and may in fact have been assisting in its development.

By whom was 9/11 manufactured?

Not easy to answer in a word, however.

The party/ies, assuming they exist, were either able to:

*Quash FBI investigative efforts which would have prevented the disaster.
see interview with David Shippers, the attorney who headed the Clinton impeachment trials, now representing FBI officers who charge that they were regularly prohibited or coerced into withholding their discoveries of the terrorist activities long before, not just the 9/11 attack, but Oklahoma and others.

*Affect the airline check-in systems so that none of the alleged hijackers names appeared on the passenger lists.
See Perplexing puzzle (I linked to this one already in the post above. I assume you have read through it?)

*Affect the major news outlets by removing seasoned staffers to replace them with young and untested journalists all throughout 2001, with many cuts right around 9/11. CNN launched it's new 'look' and staff structure only days prior to the 9/11.
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

(This is just a brief sampling of pages I looked for just now. I seem to have lost my links which contained a list of CNN staffers fired just prior to 9/11. Can't find it on-line anymore. Annoying. In any case, this last might have been coincidence, but it was very convenient that the American news structure was reduced in brain-size right when it was most critical that good journalists be around to question the weak points of this story. The powers involved, if they were opperating from such high levels, would certainly have been both able to affect such changes and would have been foolish not to. But, of course, that's just speculation.)

There are numerous other aspects of this which are not quickly summed up and require more detailed searching, and indeed, the above links were only selected for their simplicity in demonstrating what I'm talking about; there is much more information for those willing to look. Other aspects include:

*The possibility of remote piloting. (Although, while there are three specific points which indicate a strong possibility of this, including private documents recovered from the terrorists written the day prior to the event wherein they described their willingness to serve jail sentences for the crimes they intended to commit the next day, (ie, they didn't realize they were on a suicide mission), and other crash investigations (AirIndia) the black box voice recordings from which indicated a strong possibility that control of the plane was removed from the pilots and directed into the ocean against their will, (ie, demonstrating that such a thing may be possible), and the 100% perfect paths of descent and vectoring, with zero corrections made, that the planes used to make their impacts into the towers; calculated only once from the first moment the planes changed course, (i.e. suggesting that the human pilots were not involved. In any case, I think these particular arguments, while in themselves are interesting, do not necessarily indicate remote piloting.)
*The numerous links between Bin Laden, Bush and the CIA.
*The various reports of warnings hours before and 'lucky' absentees
*The numerous strange questions surrounding the rented car and Arabic flight manuals.

The list goes on.

Anyway, that should clarify what I meant by, "Manufactured."

Hope this helps.

-Fantastic Lad

It was almost midnight on a Thursday last May when a Marietta police officer and a representative of AT&T Broadband knocked on Carmen Gonzalez's door.

She says they accused her of getting cable service without paying for it. She told them she had a canceled check to show she had paid her bill; they disconnected her service anyway, The next day, Gonzalez called the cable company, which she says assured her it would correct the erroneous information and reconnect her service. A few days later, the police returned and arrested her, charging her with cable theft.

Police handcuffed her and took her to jail, where she remained until she posted bond the next day. In September, she went to trial. It took the jury 16 minutes to acquit her.

On Friday, Gonzalez and 11 other Marietta residents with similar stories filed a lawsuit against AT&T Broadband, demanding at least $50 million in damages.

The lawsuit depicts the cable provider as inefficient, disorganized and malicious. It says the 12 people, arrested in a sweep of two apartment complexes in Cobb County, suffered unnecessary expenses, humiliation and, for some, the loss of their jobs.

"We are outraged and asking for damages," said Henry Fellows, one of the attorneys representing the 12.

AT&T Broadband declined to comment on the lawsuit. Spokesman Reg Griffin said the company hasn't seen it yet.

According to the complaint, filed in Fulton County State Court, the cable company's agent and police officers also questioned children about their parents, tried to enter apartments late at night and ignored residents' claims that they did not have cable service, legal or illegal.

AT&T Broadband estimates it loses $100 million a year in metro Atlanta because of illegal cable hookups. The company ramped up efforts to curb cable theft about 18 months ago, around the time it took over the system from MediaOne.

Since then, AT&T Broadband has checked service to about 516,000 residences -- roughly half the metro-area homes situated near its cable lines. The company uncovered about 110,000 illegal hookups and has sought arrests in about 100 cases, Griffin said.

Of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, only Gonzalez went to trial on theft charges. Soon after she was exonerated, county prosecutors dropped charges against the remaining 11. Their lawsuit claims AT&T Broadband "never even reviewed its customer billing records before filing the criminal reports."

"They came and banged on my door about 20 minutes before midnight," Gonzalez said. "I don't think that it would happen in a fou-fou area like Buckhead."

Two of the plaintiffs said they lost their jobs after being arrested, and one said she has not been able to find another position "due to the fact that a permanent record of her arrest exists." Criminal charges, even if there is no conviction, are routinely reported in the criminal information databases maintained by the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

"Astoundingly, AT&T issued these reports without ever verifying whether [the] apartments were even physically connected to, otherwise equipped with or even able to receive cable television service," the lawsuit says.

The court filing includes a videotape that an AT&T Broadband representative purportedly made when he and a police officer went to the Natchez Trace apartments in May and to Hidden Glen apartments in June. The video quality is poor, with shots of the floor or angles suggesting the camera was being held so as not to call attention to the taping.

According to the lawsuit:

Lisa Burton moved into her apartment in November 2000 and called the cable company to disconnect the service, which had been left on by the previous tenant. The service finally was disconnected on May 10. Two days later, an AT&T Broadband representative came to her door, asking her to subscribe. Burton declined. She was arrested May 15.

In June, Osmisa Peacock was held in jail 14 1/2 hours on cable theft charges. Yet an AT&T Broadband technician sent to her apartment in August noted in a work order "there is no way this person could have had cable prior to today. I had to run a new line in order to hook up service."

Deborah Shepherd, Gloria Marie Mitchell Taylor and Maria Smith were arrested soon after telling AT&T Broadband to disconnect unsolicited service to their units. Taylor was using a satellite service, as were plaintiffs Anthony Scott and Zelda Tepper.

Tracey Massay was charged with cable theft even though she didn't have the service. AT&T Broadband tried to sell her the service even though cable theft charges were pending against her.

AT&T Broadband's Griffin said cable technicians who find illegal hookups usually are followed by a sales team. "We say, 'Now that you've been trialing our service, would you like to buy it?' "

AT&T Corp. is considering selling its cable division, the largest operator in the nation. Among potential bidders for AT&T Broadband is Atlanta-based Cox Communications, majority held by the owner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Here are some photos

This Sony remote is pretty good as an inexpensive learning remote.

One of the major problems with most cheap learning remotes is the lack of memory available to learn alot of functions. This one actually has enough keys and enough memory to totally memorize the functions for a Tivo remote with it's mass of buttons (4-way switch, menus, play/pause/slow, etc). It also has macros for those that have all of their TV sound output through their receiver (can turn TV and receiver on simultaneously).

At $40 here, it's pretty decent for the price.

It's not the extreme high end, but it's enough to control my TV, Receiver, VCR, DVD, Laserdisc and have enough memory to copy my Philips Tivo remote.

Reviews are here and here.

1. Bin Laden comes home to roost - about the militant's CIA training
   
2. Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban - Opinion, references the $43 million in 2001
   
3. $70 million in aid to Afghanistan in 1997 - according to the CIA itself.
   
4. Who is Osama Bin Laden?
   
5. They can't see why they are hated - Opinion
   
6. Arab-Americans feel a backlash
   
7. Arab-American community 'keeping its head down'
   
8. Acts of Terrorism the Ultimate 'Faith-Based Initiative' - Opinion
   
9. Charity receives hate calls
   
10. Falwell says 'ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this'
    

Firstly - to the crack-head moderator - how is this offtopic? It is a direct repercussion of the attack.

To the original poster - raising the price of gas is not illegal unless the area is in a state of emergency usually declared by the Governor. Here is a link in my home town about possible price gouging.

It is, however, amoral. I would love to see people take pictures of the price signs and the stores to be posted on the web as a "Hall of Shame" of selfish cretins that would take advantage of one of the worst disasters in American history. I would never, ever, buy from them again and pass the word along.

-tim

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution - (grade: C+) "Maybe Darwin was wrong: this remake shows no sign of evolution."

• Chicago Tribune - "...a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house."

• CNN.com - "...this is one really bad script."

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City) - (3 stars) "...when it's good, it comes close to being great."

• E! Online - (grade: C+) "...offers an eye-appealing world but a truly disappointing story."

• Entertainment Weekly - (grade: C+) "...[features] everything...but imagination."

• L.A. Weekly - "...underwritten..."

• Los Angeles Times - "...over-plotted and under-dramatized..."

• Mr. Showbiz - (rating: 2/5) "...despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation."

• New York Times - "...both a gas and distant, a toy sealed in its unbreakable box."

• People - "The fault lies not in the stars here but in the script."

• Roger Ebert - (2.5 stars) "I expected more."

• Salon - "...stops far too short of being completely seductive."

• San Francisco Chronicle - "...an amazing display of imagination."

• TV Guide - (2.5 out of 5 stars) "...sorely deficient on the story front."

• USA Today - (3 out of 4 stars) "...[the costumes] allow the power of the performer inside the ape gear to break on through."

• Search the Movie Review Query Engine

Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" wants to be all things to all men, and all apes. It's an action picture and a satire of an action picture. It's a comedy and then it gets serious. It's a social satire and then backs away from pushing that angle too far. It even has a weird intra-species romantic triangle in it. And it has a surprise ending that I loved, even though Matt Drudge spoiled it last weekend with a breathless "scoop."

The movie could have been more. It could have been a parable of men and animals, as daring as "Animal Farm." It could have dealt in social commentary with a sting, and satire that hurt. It could have supported, or attacked, the animal rights movement. It could have dealt with the intriguing question of whether a man and a gorilla having sex is open-mindedness, or bestiality (and, if bestiality, in both directions?).

It could have, but it doesn't. It's a cautious movie, earning every letter and numeral of its PG-13 rating. Intellectually, it's science fiction for junior high school boys.

I expected more. I thought Burton would swing for the fence. He plays it too safe, defusing his momentum with little nudges to tell you he knows it's only a movie. The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" was made before irony became an insurance policy. It made jokes, but it took itself seriously. Burton's "Planet" has scenes that defy us to believe them (his hero survives two bumpy crash-landings that look about as realistic as the effects in his "Mars Attacks!"). And it backs away from any kind of risky complexity in its relationships.

The key couple consists of Leo (Mark Wahlberg), who is the human hero, and Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who is the Eleanor Roosevelt of the apes. They're attracted to each other but don't know what to do about it, and the screenplay gives them little help. Leo is also supposed to be linked romantically, I guess, with a curvy blond human named Daena (Estella Warren), but her role has been so abbreviated that basically all she does is follow along looking at Leo either significantly or winsomely, as circumstances warrant. At the end, he doesn't even bid her a proper farewell.

Leo, to be sure, is not one for effusive emotional outbursts. He's played by Wahlberg as a limited and narrow person with little imagination, who never seems very surprised by anything that happens to him--like, oh, to take a random example, crash-landing on a planet where the apes rule the humans. He's a space jockey type, trained in macho self-abnegation, who is great in a crisis but doesn't offer much in the way of conversation. His basic motivation seems to be to get himself off the planet, and to hell with the friends he leaves behind; he's almost surly sometimes as he leads his little band through the wilderness.

The most "human" character in the movie is, in fact, the chimpanzee Ari, who believes all species were created equal, casts her lot with the outcast humans, and tells Leo, "you're sensitive--a welcome quality in a man." Helena Bonham Carter invests this character with warmth, personality and distinctive body language; she has a way of moving that kids itself.

There's also juice in a character named Limbo (Paul Giamatti), a scam artist who has a deal for everyone, and a lot of funny one-liners. That he sounds like a carnival pitch-man should not be held against him.

The major ape characters include the fearsome Gen. Thade (Tim Roth), his strong but occasionally thoughtful gorilla lieutenant Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), and Sen. Sandar (David Warner), who is a parliamentary leader and Ari's father. There's also a cameo for Charlton Heston, as a wise old ape who inevitably introduces a gun into the plot and has a curmudgeonly exit line. Watching the apes is fun all during the movie, while watching the humans usually isn't; the movie works hard to bring the apes to life, but unwisely thinks the humans can take care of themselves.

It's interesting that several different simian species co-exist in the planet's ape society. It may be a little hard to account for that, given the logic of the movie, although I will say no more. One major change between this film and the earlier one is that everyone--apes and humans--speak English. The movie explains why the apes speak English, but fudges on how they learned to speak at all.

The movie is great-looking. Rick Baker's makeup is convincing even in the extreme closeups, and his apes sparkle with personality and presence. The sets and locations give us a proper sense of alien awe, and there's one neat long shot of the ape city-mountain that looks, when you squint a little, like Xanadu from "Citizen Kane." There are lines inviting laughs ("Extremism in the defense of apes is no vice") and others unwisely inviting groans ("If you show me the way out of here--I promise I'll show you something that will change your life forever"). And a priceless moment when Leo wants to stop the squabbling among his fugitive group of men and apes and barks: "Shut up! That goes for all species!"

"Planet of the Apes" is the kind of movie that you enjoy at times, admire at times, even really like at times, but is it necessary? Given how famous and familiar Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film is, Tim Burton had some kind of an obligation to either top it, or sidestep it. Instead, he pays homage. He calls this version a "reimaging," and so it is, but a reinvention might have been better. Burton's work can show a wild and crazed imagination, but here he seems reined in. He's made a film that's respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that's not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

Let's make a tradition of this!

Either you're a troll or completely unaware of the publication process.

The biggest service journals offer is the coordination of peer review. So, in any decent journal, you can be sure that every article has been read, understood, and criticized by a few independent scientists in the particular discipline. It takes a lot of time to send copies of every submission to 2-3 reviewers (often identifying the reviewer in the first place), pester the reviewers to respond, meta-review the reviews and decide whether to publish or not. That process provides credibility and is why I pay more attention to, say the AJP than the AJC. They have these costs independent of whether they put out a paper product or not and it is an enormous added value.

Nor are most journals the official organs of academic societies. 50 years ago, maybe, but not now. Take a look at Academic Press, Kluwer, Wilkins... Some of their titles are society journals, but the explosion of academic journals has been mostly the for-profit variety

You know, it occurs to me that companies aren't just willing to sell things to you anymore and let you go on your merry way. Now you not only pay with your hard-earned money but also with your demographics. When was the last Web site you saw where you could just go in, add one or more products to your shopping cart and simply check out without having to register and tell the company everything about yourself, including what you had for breakfast that morning? And this tactic isn't just happening online anymore. This morning's Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a story about how Kroger is now limiting most of its sale items to those who sign up for its discount card. And yes, they can and do keep track of what you buy. And like everyone else, they say that they'll never divulge that data. I wonder how many companies would be willing to write that promise into a legally-binding contract. Not many, I bet. You'd think that retailers would be happy to just sell us things, but no, they want to also sell us to marketers. And I don't buy the BS that this allows them to lower the prices they charge us. They're doing it to make more money, not so they can give us the benefit of lower prices. If a marketer wants my data, then they can pay me in cold hard cash. After all, it's my data, damn it. You want my demographics? Fine, show me the money! If I like your offer, then maybe we'll talk.

Happens all the time. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that more than 5400 dead Georgians voted in the recent election. Clearly a better accounting system is needed.

If a credit reporting agency refuses to remove a fradulent report, they can be sued.

A good site to check for this issue is www.clarkhoward.com , especially here.