One American Europe Does Like
Austria just put a Aunuld stamp up for sale, and it looks very cool, very American. However, I should note that this Austrian-produced stamp is obviously for the American market since (Mrs. Director, correct me if I am wrong), "governor" in German is regler and Austrians call their country Österreich, and both of these are on the stamp in English.

If this were meant for Austrians, wouldn't the stamp be in German?

Hat Tip: Mark the Pundit (who has a much larger picture of the stamp posted)

posted by Director_Mitch @ 12:04 PM (Permalink)
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Why Old Europe "Hates" America
Thanks to an article at The Smoking Room, I found a couple of interesting articles on (Old) European attitudes towards America:

Hating America - Set aside a good 15 minutes to read this lengthy and somewhat academic entry - sort of like reading Denbeste. Key point:

...the “paradise” of peace and prosperity Europe now enjoys is made possible, quite simply, by American power. Provided with security from outside, Europe requires no power of its own; yet protected under the umbrella of American power, it’s able to delude itself that power is “no longer important” and that American military power, and the strategic culture that has created and sustained it, is outmoded and dangerous.
...
If America is founded on liberty—and on the idea that its preservation is worth great sacrifice—those who steer the fortunes of Western Europe have no strong unifying principle for which they can imagine sacrificing much.

How true. My own experiences with "Old" Europeans have led me to believe that they don't value freedom, won't fight for it, and don't care if others suffer from a lack of it - sort of like the American left.

European Misconceptions - This is a more typical blog entry from Bite the Wax Tadpole (business students will know where this name came from). His article is where I found the above link, and he tells a first-person account of dealing with European attitudes.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 8:51 PM (Permalink)
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The Studios Must Be Having Conniptions
TIVO's with Integrated DVD Recorders Due out this Summer

The San Jose, Calif.-based company will unveil a Series2 recorder with a new look in mid-August, and licensing partners Toshiba and Humax are expected to release DVRs with DVD-burning capabilities...The combination DVR and DVD boxes will allow consumers to record television programming and then burn it to DVD-R or DVD-RW discs

This is great for consumers since it makes downloading and recording movies and shows from cable and satellite incredibly easy. The studios, on the other hand, must be incredibly pissed since this makes distribution of digital video that much easier (if anyone wants DVDs of Barnie or Caillou for their kids, instead of spending $10 at Wallmart they just give their friend with one of these gizmos a $2 disk to record it for them).

posted by Director_Mitch @ 9:56 AM (Permalink)
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Using Blogs to Perpetrate Hoaxes
CNET has an interesting article on "blog hoaxes"  - blogs that are supposedly set up by real people that turn out to be fake.   Examples include fake blogs from Bill Clinton and Andy Kaufman (who, I am thankful to hear, really is dead).

Quite frankly I am surprised that people are taken in by these sort of things since (slightly changing the line from the movie Boiler Room), on the internet, you can be anyone you want.  One would think that this anonymity would make people think twice about what people claim about themselves on a blog, but apparently a lot of people are taken in (Ed: It should be noted that Mitch really works in high-tech marketing and his birthday really was this week)

This is why I think blogs are most useful for discussing thoughts and opinions.  Whether you are discussing technology, business, or politics, it doesn't matter who you are, it's what you bring to the conversation that matters.



posted by Director_Mitch @ 9:10 AM (Permalink)
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One Day Earlier And He Could Have Used "Birth of Director Mitch"
Fellow Bear Flagger Jeff Doolittle is hosting this week's Carnival of the Vanities using the theme "On This Day in History, July 28th".  If only he had only done it a day earlier...


posted by Director_Mitch @ 11:06 AM (Permalink)
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One Person's Reasons for Voting for Kerry
From the comment section of Spot On, here is the story of one person who is supporting Kerry this year:

I am a senior citizen. During the Clinton Administration, I had an extremely good and well paying job. I took numerous vacations and had several vacation homes. Since President Bush took office, I watched my entire life change for the worse. I lost my job. I lost my two sons in that terrible Iraqi War. I lost my homes. I lost my health insurance. As the matter of fact, I have lost everything. Adding insult to injury, when the authorities found me living like an animal, instead of helping me, they arrested me. I will do anything that Senator Kerry wants to insure that a Demacrat is back in the White House come next year. I just thought that all Americans would like to know how one senior citizen views the Bush Administration.

Sincerely, Saddam Hussein.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 10:17 AM (Permalink)
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Japan Outsources to U.S.
Outsourcing seems to have diminished as an election year issue, but here's an example of outsourcing politicians of both stripes can support

Sony to Set Up Next Generation DVD Pilot Plant in U.S.
Sony is going to set up a pilot plant for manufacturing the Blu-ray Disc, a next generation DVD format promoted by Sony, in the U.S., Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on July 14, 2004. Sony wants to partner with the U.S. movie industry, which will be the primary customers for the new DVD standard. Taking input from the movie companies and incorporating the information into the disc production process and specifications, Sony hopes that Blu-ray Disc will be adopted as media for movie storage.

Sony will install manufacturing lines for producing 25GB one-sided discs and 50GB double-sided discs in its DVD manufacturing facility in Indiana. The 50GB disc has more than 10 times the capacity of an existing DVD disc. It can store about four and half hours of high definition video or over 30 two-hour long movies recorded in normal mode.

Source: Portelligent (no direct link to article)

posted by Director_Mitch @ 8:46 AM (Permalink)
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Birthday Greetings Pour In
Here it is my 36th birthday, so I thought I would share some of the birthday greetings I'm getting from people you might know:

Mitch, you ol' dog!  Hard to believe you're 36!  Seems like it was only yesterday that the two of us finished off that whole bottle of Makers Mark while coming up with the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy^TM.   Keep those ideas flowing as you enter "old age" - GW is still gushing about your idea of handing over Iraq a few days early (he sends his regards).  Take care and be sure to drop me a line the next time you're in D.C.


posted by Director_Mitch @ 12:01 AM (Permalink)
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But Al, Anger Gives in to the Dark Side
Gore encourages anger in electorate:

"To those of you who felt disappointed or angry with the outcome in 2000, I want you to remember all of those feelings"

The former democratic candidate then ecouraged the electorate to give in to their feelings of hate and strike down the closest conservative with their light saber.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 6:45 PM (Permalink)
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This Baby Says GOOG
In a follow-up to my post on Google's stock symbol, it turns out it will be GOOG (which I think is pretty lame). If you want some for your portfolio, they are pricing it above $100.

Hat Tip: Polyblog

posted by Director_Mitch @ 8:31 AM (Permalink)
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Kerry: I Voted To Give The President Authority As Long As He Didn't Use It
Here is Kerry commenting on his vote for the Iraq War. Does this make sense to anyone?

Giving Bush the authority he sought "was appropriate and is authority I would have wanted as president," Kerry said Thursday in an interview with USA TODAY. "(But) He didn't use the authority correctly."

So Kerry voted to give the President authority to go to war, but got pissed off when he actually used it? Maybe he is being too nuanced for me, but this sounds like another "I voted for it before I voted against it."

posted by Director_Mitch @ 12:01 AM (Permalink)
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Comparing Moore to Fascist Propagandists
I pissed off a friend of mine by comparing Moore to the Nazi propagandists. Turns out the Poles - who know a thing or two about propaganda from both the Nazis and the Commies - agree with me:

Michael Moore's contentious film Fahrenheit 9/11 has opened in Poland, with some film critics likening it to totalitarian propaganda.

Gazeta Wyborcza reviewer Jacek Szczerba called the film a "foul pamphlet". He said it was too biased to be called a documentary and was similar to Nazi propaganda director Leni Riefenstahl. . . .

"In criticizing Moore, I have to admit that he has certain abilities - Leni Riefenstahl had them too," Mr Szczerba said in his review.

My friend's rebuttal was that while Moore is certainly a propagandist, you can't put him with the Nazis since they were supporting a man who wanted to mass murder millions. My response is: Moore is tacitly supporting the same thing.

Today there is a whole army of people who would like to release nukes or biological agents on my three-year-old daughter because of where she was born and the religion of her parents. These people managed to strike at the heart of my country nearly three years ago. Instead of using his talent to attack this ideology and the people who support Islamofascism, Moore instead uses outright lies and distortions to attack the President of the U.S. and his administration

Has Bush and Company done everything perfectly? Of course not - if you look for fault anywhere you are going to find it. Can there be a difference of opinion on how to stamp out this ideology? Sure, as long as you agree that it needs to be stamped out, which isn't the case with the left wing of American politics, which includes Moore. Like the leftists of Europe in the 1930s, they believe in a policy of peaceful co-existence with a people and ideology that is bent on their destruction.

Moore's movie and pick of target to condemn doesn't puts him in the ranks of those who openly supported fascism, it puts him in the ranks of those who refused to recognize what Fascism was or refused to do anything about it, and they were just as guilty of genocide as those who actively engaged in it.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 9:12 PM (Permalink)
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Being Bourne Rules
Saw Bourne Supremacy this afternoon, and it's just a great action-adventure flick. I would even put it a tad above the first Bourne Identity since I think the acting was better this time around. I'm not going to give an in-depth review or spoilers, but if you like action movies, just go see it.

As a side note, the trailer for National Treasure looked interesting: Nicolas Cage as an Indiana Jones type character hunting down lost treasures. It comes out this Thanksgiving and - from the trailer at least - looks pretty good.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 2:07 PM (Permalink)
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