MoveOn needs to get better at messaging. Their ability to raise money and put ads out there makes them relevant, but their actual kung-fu is a little weak.

Here's what I think it boils down to:

• He'll say anything to get a job: this is an important theme for framing the whole hearing process, but currently muddled in MoveOn's ad with the abortion bit. If there's a pivot from abortion it's:
• Privacy. This has the advantage of being the constitutional issue, and having broader general support than "abortion" in particular. It also has strong resonance with the NSA scandal. It's also a decent pivot to:
• Unchecked Presidential power. Why did Scalito get the nomination instead of any of the other fine conservative activists out there? Maybe because what Bush really wants is a justice who will swing the court to authorize his idea that the President is above the law.

Since the major cost here is airtime, not production, in the future it might be smart create a series of ads which share a common theme ("he plays one on TV" is ok, but not a home run) and address two or three points more directly. Not to provide more information, but to repeat the basic message more. People can find the facts online. On TV you want to repeat stuff that sticks, and then repeat it some more.

So if you were to do three ads, it might go:

1. He'll do anything to get a job. Lied on resume. Lied about recusing himself from cases involving Vanguard. Lied about his membership in CAP. He'll say whatever he thinks people want to hear in an interview to get the job.
2. He doesn't believe in a constitutional right to privacy. You can go to the point of saying his legal writing suggests women are the property of their husbands and fathers, but the essential legal point is whether or not a right to privacy exists. If this is what the debate is about, we win.
3. He believes in unchecked Presidential power. Bush is trying to pack the court so he can remain above the law.

Obviously as the hearings go on, the drama will shift and surge, but it's essential that these basic points be repeated by every advocacy group and political organization. Using literally the same language if possible, especially on TV.

I didn't even know Fox owned MySpace. This is all sorts of interesting.

The buzz is about censorship, but this reinforces several ideas/themes I've been feeling. First of all there's the ham-fisted way in which the corp is dealing with "community." Perhaps they don't realize that the technology they purchased has very limited novelty. There are already open source tools that would let you build something as sophisticated as myspace at a delivered cost of under $100k.

You need to spend some money to host 43 million users, yeah, but the code isn't really very valuable. What they bought was a community. No quicker way to drive those people away than to start restricting what they can do and say.

The traditional media is woefully out of touch. The Independent calls MySpace a "filesharing" site. Ha!

Also, this casts MySpace Music in a rather different light, being owned by a global media conglomerate and all. A little less indie, you might say. It now looks more like the imprint wave of the 90s. Can we expect more of this? Maybe. Musicians are a fairly exploitable population.

Finally, I wonder if that means NewsCorp has prepared for the legal contingency families seeking civil damages as a result of statutory rape. When it's a random chat room, or something being run by a couple kids that's one thing, but if Rupert Murdoch owns a service that encourages illegal sexual encounters... well, we live in a litigious society, and Billionaire Tyrants make appealing targets.

(Found via: Atrios)

In lieu of anything else, I stayed up a bit to late watching DVDs and reading books last night. 2046 was the lightlight, The Machinist.

I've never seen a tragic romance done with a male protagonist before, but that's what 2046 is, a story of a writer in Hong Kong in the 60s who's unlucky in love, partly by choice. It was really quite good, maybe especially to me, but the viewer brings their own set of experiences to any cultural product and that's part of the deal. Anyway, if you can dig subtitles, I strongly suggest it.

The Machinist features an Auchwitz-skinny Christian Bale (I realize that's probably offensive, but it's the only thing I could think of whenever I saw his body... I hope he had some doctors with him on that project) in a smart and creepy sort of visual riddle. It was good opaque enough to keep me guessing until the end, which is always nice.

Finally, literature-wise, I finished The Normals, which has a strong middle, but is sort of mushy on either end. Not a good combination for any work of art, but still enjoyable in places. It must be hard to write novels these days, what with all the layers of self-awareness that one has to deal with. It's a problem facing anyone creative. I prefer to go at it stright up, either just make stuff that's unabashedly about me (and hopefully still interesting), or reach out for something that's almost spectacularly fictional. But I can see how other people get caught up in the necessity of addressing the post-post-modernity of the moment. Frankly, in my opinion, the less said about it the better.

Tips for Travelers to Canada

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 requires that, by January 1, 2008, travelers to and from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Panama, Mexico and Canada have a passport or other secure, accepted document to enter or re-enter the United States. This is a change from prior travel requirements.

With my photocopy, I can get a new Drivers License in 7 to 21 days, which is in time for my trip. It seems I will have sufficient proof of self.

It was funny though, getting on the phone with the man from the DMV. "You've got a problem, man. You can't proove who you are!"

I know.

Anyway, all's well that ends well.